In his fiction debut, a collection of 11 stories, German defense lawyer von Schirach displays a facility with contemporary noir in such tales as "Fähner," the depressing account of a troubled marriage that ends in violence, and "The Cello," which depicts the effect of a stifled upbringing on two siblings, but other selections will strike readers as sketchy or obscure. "Love," in which the defense attorney narrator represents a troubled student with a cannibalism fetish, reads more like a brief anecdote shared among professional colleagues than a story with a point. "The Thorn," in which a museum employee takes sadistic pleasure in planting thumbtacks to cause others pain, is equally enigmatic. Von Schirach's tendency to say less than is called for is also evident in his afterword, which confusingly delineates the differences between the American and German justice systems, then concludes that the differences don't matter. (Jan.)
