DOING JUSTICE

A Prosecutor’s Thoughts on Crime, Punishment, and the Rule of Law

By Preet Bharara

Am I the only woman in America who considers Preet Bharara her podcast husband?

I am guessing not. His show, “Stay Tuned With Preet,” is a salve, an indulgence, a lifeline: It coasts along not just on the vitality of Bharara’s intelligence (uncommonly useful, given that he once was the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, and so many urgent questions these days are legal ones), and not just on his ability to do a good interview (though there’s that too; one wonders if years of quizzing witnesses and summarizing cases made him understand the rhythms of a good story), but on his warmth, humor, reasonableness. Donald J. Trump may be laying dynamite beneath the floorboards of our most beloved institutions, democracies here and elsewhere may have blown a flat, but Preet’s still there, calmly issuing dispatches from Planet Rational, reminding us each week that humane people with fine minds and old-fashioned concerns (integrity! character! truth, justice, the commonweal!) are still very much a part of public life.

Plus, his children think he’s a dork. United States attorneys: They’re just like us.

Given how busy his tenure was — his office prosecuted everyone from the Times Square Bomber to the two top legislators in Albany — and given how rare a varietal he is of charm and conscientiousness and intellect, Bharara seems the ideal candidate to write a fine memoir. But “Doing Justice: A Prosecutor’s Thoughts on Crime, Punishment, and the Rule of Law” isn’t a memoir, exactly; had it been an uncomplicated reminiscence, I would have enjoyed it much more.

[ Can’t wait to read the Mueller report? Here are some books to read in the meantime. ]

What is it instead? In his preface, Bharara explains that for years, he’s wanted to write a guide for young prosecutors, one that draws “not from legal texts and treatises but from the real-life human dilemmas that would perplex them every day.” So: “Letters to a Young Lawyer,” let’s call it, based on a lived curriculum. But as Bharara was developing his themes, he adds, he realized that this book “might in fact be a guide to justice generally, not only for practitioners, but for real people who strive and struggle in their homes and offices to be fair and just.”