Headline Justice: Inside the Courtroom: The Country's Most Controversial Trials

While many autobiographies characterize life as a series of trials, that assertion is literally true for court reporter Wilson, whose memoir spans five decades of high-profile legal coverage, much of it for the New York Daily News. She organizes her book through the trials she has witnessed, with chapters touching on Charles Manson, Patty Hearst, Jean Harris and Sam Sheppard, among others. But the real story here is Wilson's career. She started out in an era when a male editor commenting on a female colleague's ""tits"" would get slapped with a cold stare, not a harassment suit, and she betrays a certain nostalgia for that time, its snappy patter and carefree camaraderie. The antics of Wilson's close-knit company of colleagues provide the book's fondest and most humorous-sometimes blackly so-reminiscences: Wilson herself attended a Manson trial fete dressed as ""family"" member and star witness Linda Kasabian. Between war stories, Wilson offers a primer on the habits of a successful court reporter, lending her memoir considerable interest for those curious about the craft of journalism. Readers seeking any significant new information on the sensational trials Wilson covered, however, won't find it here. (Jan.)