Books in Brief: Fiction

TRIALS By Anne Tolstoi Wallach. Dutton, $24.95.

What do you think? Can Tom D'Arcy, a beautiful gay ballet dancer, retain custody of Caitlin, the daughter of Tom's lover, Johnny California, the millionaire artist who died in a skiing accident in Switzerland? Or will Caitlin go to her Aunt Ba, Johnny's sister, lonely, childless, uptight, and to Ba's husband, the odious Tal Bishop? How will the judge decide? Especially when the judge is Pax Peyton Ford, tiny, gorgeous even unto middle age, who did not find out until her husband was dead that he had been having a homosexual affair, who desperately wants Bishop to nominate her to an appellate judgeship, and who is having an affair with Leonard Scholer, father of her son's wife. But Pax can't speak to Leonard during the trial because his firm is representing D'Arcy, which throws Leonard into the arms of Rosa Macario, Pax's best friend, who is also a judge and who also covets that appellate position. You can tell by Rosa's name that she's Hispanic and by the book she's in that she will hide her vibrant beauty beneath severe lawyer's suits -- until Leonard takes her on a midnight shopping trip to Bergdorf's and persuades her to wear a red ruffled number instead. Don't worry about Caitlin. You'll figure out who gets her before much of the book is done. By then, you'll be obsessing about other matters anyway. If you're a lawyer, as I am, you'll be wondering where in Manhattan's scruffy Supreme Court you might find the luxurious chambers Pax is said to have. Or how she manages to decide a major case without reading any of the precedents. Jean G. Zorn