Admissible Evidence — Thomas Chastain

The authors comprising the Adams Round Table are New York City-based mystery writers whose previous offering was Murder in Manhattan . In a concept again ``created'' by Bill Adler, their tales are set in various New York neighborhoods, where corpses are discovered under humorous, ironic or macabre circumstances. The best-known of the group--Mary Higgins Clark and Thomas Chastain-- are not in top form here. In Clark's ``The Body in the Closet,'' a young playwright discovers the body of his leading lady in his apartment; the crime is resolved too neatly to inspire credibility. ``Admissible Evidence'' by Chastain chronicles the murder trial of a Beekman Place socialite falsely convicted of killing the man who spurned her affections, while the real murderer remains free to kill again. On the other hand, Stanley Cohen's ``Hello! My Name Is Irving Wasserman,'' is a winner. A savvy East Side couple finds a well-dressed corpse rolled up in a rug they have salvaged from a dumpster. The agoraphobic poetess in Mickey Friedman's clever ``Night in the Lonesome October'' hides the recently murdered body of a neighbor in the backyard of her brownstone. Other contributors are Dorothy Salisbury Davis, Judith Kelman, Lucy Freeman, Joyce Harrington, Warren Murphy and Justin Scott. (Oct.)