Arthur Train, a colorful and accomplished lawyer, for two periods an assistant district attorney for the county of New York, a skilled prosecutor, and a learned and ingenious student of the law, was also one of the most popular and gifted writers of his time, with a body of work extending from true tales of crime and courtroom to social history, from autobiography to novels of manners, and embracing a large body of short fiction of uncommon narrative grace. Several times Train argued that the law was destructive of the talents of a writer, corrupting the style and encouraging all of the wrong habits of mind. If such arguments seem at first playful self-derogation, as one reads on they seem authentic and sincere; Train's reasons are persuasive and devoid of irony. Yet, if he was right, he was his own conspicuous exception. The subject matter of his most...