If you thought Edward Meese, John Ashcroft, and Alberto Gonzales were shameful, you might want to take a short stroll down memory lane in this authoritative and apparently the first complete biography of Richard Nixon’s attorney general, who landed in a federal penal institution for his part in the Watergate break-in and cover-up. (A fate the above-mentioned miscreants have escaped.) If you are still haunted by the whys and what-ifs of Nixon’s second term, James Rosen’s thorough account should be of help, if not comfort.