A great anthology in the tradition of "tales told in a bar", specifically of the "loveable rogue who only cons people who deserve it" variety.

Except, er, in many stories the racism is not subtle. The n-word is used multiple times, among other epithets; "A Tempered Wind" is particularly horrific in starting with something talking about lynching in a cheerfully casual way that (allowing for the circumlocutions inherent to the genre) appears to admit to profiting off the process. (There are similarly moments of misogyny - indeed a couple of stories centre entirely on the flaws of womankind - though nothing quite that appalling.)

If you can/want to ignore those parts, the stories are tightly told; packed with incisive humour, malapropisms, and zeugmas; and each finished with a twist. "Shearing the Wolf" was my absolute favourite for its twist. This one avoids racism and misogyny (by being about only three white men), though derives some of its impact from knowing the characters of a pair of them from previous, more heavily implicated, stories. ( )