It's hard not to love human-interest columnist Cooper Barnet. Readers are drawn to his prize-winning prose, good looks, guileless charm, and compassion for those on the fringe. Barnet also has a seductive vulnerability that makes him irresistible. People have the sense that he needs protecting, and they instinctively try to take care of him. Like his girlfriend Percy Sims, an unflappable dancing teacher with enough "off" in her beat to cope with Cooper's peculiar superstitions and enigmatic ways. And his octogenarian sidekick Margaret Motte Burns, the wealthy Charleston aristocrat who invents...