Fiction. In Andrew Plattner's new story collection, A MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE, characters try to improve their odds, on the racetrack and in life. In "Runaway," teenager Hawley Bolton longs to run away from his wealthy home to join racetrackers like Helen, who tells him, "remember something good always happens at the racetrack.... You just gotta hang around long enough for luck to find you." In "More Than a Hunch," the narrator has a tip he is sure will help his former girlfriend and her grown son if they would only listen. But in every story, whether on the track or anywhere else, characters...