After a week, it's better. I miss her. I mourn her. But some peace has returned. She had been so unattainable - so young, so much a citizen of a different era - that it is hard to feel fully deprived.

People talk of me as being the inventor of the legal thriller.

There cannot be any greater challenge to the law than trying to adjudicate mass crimes like war crimes.

The law, for all its failings, has a noble goal - to make the little bit of life that people can actually control more just. We can't end disease or natural disasters, but we can devise rules for our dealings with one another that fairly weigh the rights and needs of everyone, and which, therefore, reflect our best vision of ourselves.

Libraries function as crucial technology hubs, not merely for free Web access, but for those who need computer training and assistance. Library business centers help support entrepreneurship and retraining.

What kills a person at twenty-five? Leukemia. An accident. But George knows the better odds are that someone who passes at that age dies of unhappiness. Drug overdose. Suicide. Reckless behavior.

That led me to say that when push comes to shove, I'm against capital punishment.