I've just returned from London, which is quite a different city from the one I visited four months ago, when I spent a week at Claridge's celebrating the end of the lawsuit brought against me by former congressman Gary Condit concerning the death of the Washington intern Chandra Levy. Then there was joy in the air. This time, the city was on high alert, after two sets of recent terrorist bombings. The explosions had both occurred on Thursdays, which people feared may have been part of a deliberate pattern. I was there the following Thursday, and there was tension in the air, with policemen everywhere you looked—6,000 of them, carrying machine guns. There were roadblocks and concrete barriers on the streets, and the American Embassy, on Grosvenor Square, was so heavily barricaded it looked like a fortress. Police cars, with sirens blaring and lights flashing, raced by in rapid succession. Everyone seemed reluctant to use public transportation. "I'm staying out of the tube," I heard one man say on television. Traffic was often at a near standstill. I was amazed at how quickly the police were able to track down the terrorists responsible, in just a matter of days. It proved how important it is to have closed-circuit cameras in subways and bus terminals. I followed every movement live on BBC News 24 as police captured two terrorists stripped down to their undershorts on a balcony in West London. As if that were not enough for England to deal with, a violent tornado hit Birmingham and did massive damage. As ever, the Brits soldiered on.

Although it would have shamed me in the past, I have to admit to a certain amount of racial profiling. I found myself drawing away from Muslim men with backpacks and furtively eyeing Muslim women in burkas with black veils that covered their faces except for the eyes. I turned down taxicabs that weren't driven by old-fashioned English cabbies—a number of whom told me they will no longer pick up Muslims. All the time I was perfectly aware that most of the people I looked twice at were probably totally innocent, going about their everyday lives, but I could not keep the words "terrorist" and "suicide bomber" out of my thoughts.

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One purpose of this recent trip was to interview Conrad and Barbara Black, now Lord and Lady Black of Crossharbour, who were being written up constantly in the British press because of their efforts to make a comeback as players in London society after a long period of oblivion following the financial scandal that caused Black to lose his media empire, as well as slews of grand friends. My initial reason for going back to London actually interested me even more, because it would be an entirely new experience for me, if it happened. Over the years, I've grown used to observing individuals who have fallen from grace. I've written about many of them, and I've had the experience myself, though to a far lesser degree than the Blacks, in the course of the Condit lawsuit. But I had never witnessed the pulping of a book. Even the word "pulping" was new to me. In this case it meant recalling and destroying all unsold copies of a highly controversial novel entitled Empress Bianca, by Lady Colin Campbell, which had caused extreme distress to one of the richest widows in the world, Lily Safra, on whose life the plot was rumored to be based. I wanted to watch the pulping, if possible. Were they going to shred the recalled copies? Or burn them? I was dying to be present when it happened, and I knew the people who could get me in to witness this unusual literary event.

I knew Lady Black in another life, in the 70s, in Hollywood.

The novel, which was published by Arcadia Books on June 2, had been the talk of international society all summer, especially after it was recalled from every commercial outlet on the insistence of Anthony Julius, the prestigious British solicitor, who is best known for representing the late Princess Diana in her acrimonious and profitable—a reported $30 million—divorce from the Prince of Wales. Julius had acted on the orders of his client the wealthy philanthropist and society figure Lily Safra, the widow of the late banker Edmond Safra, who was asphyxiated in a fire set in his Monte Carlo penthouse in December 1999. It is hard not to think that there would have been far less of a story for the newspapers if Lily Safra had ignored the book, or declared it ridiculous, rather than allowing all hell to break loose by demanding that it be pulped. As it is, her name now appears on a regular basis in the London papers, and none of the coverage is worshipful.

In the end, neither of my quests turned out to be completely successful, but we'll come to that.

Despite all of the inconveniences of a city threatened by terrorists, social life went on as usual. Nicky Haslam, London's most famous man-about-town, is a good friend to have when you arrive for a brief visit. He knows about every lunch, every dinner, and every party on the horizon, and he arranged for me to be invited to a number of them—breakfast at Claridge's, lunch at Cipriani, dinner at George. Among the city's swell set, by the way, Prince Charles and the former Camilla Parker Bowles are humorously referred to as "the Cornwalls." "We saw the Cornwalls at dinner," said Haslam at one party, and everyone collapsed with laughter. It's an aristo kind of joke.

The famous annual summer party of The Spectator, which had been scheduled for the night of the first bombing and as a result had to be canceled, finally took place on July 28, at the Spectator office, which is a lovely old house and garden in Bloomsbury. The event turned out to be what we call over here a rat fuck—crushingly crowded, with people packed together in every inch of space—but it was enormous fun. I read The Spectator religiously every week, and that night I was able to meet all the writers I've been admiring for years, including Boris Johnson, the editor. Some people wondered if Lord Black, who was in town, would drop by, inasmuch as he had once owned The Spectator, before he was forced to sell it. "Dru Heinz had the Blacks to lunch," said someone I didn't know, referring to the American literary hostess. Then I put in my two cents: "I saw Conrad yesterday, and he and Barbara left for France this morning." I had a funny chat with Sarah Sands, the new editor of The Sunday Telegraph, concerning her paper's interview with Lady Colin Campbell about Empress Bianca and the abject apology to Lily Safra the Telegraph had been forced to print the following Sunday. I said, "I've quoted your retraction in my diary in Vanity Fair." She had a few things to say about the nature of the retraction, which, as far as I have been able to understand, was practically dictated to The Sunday Telegraph by representatives of Lily Safra.

I went to a terrific party at a beautiful Rothschild house in Chester Square, quite near Margaret Thatcher's house, which I could see was being more heavily guarded than usual. The house where the party took place had spectacular lighting and an amazing collection of contemporary art. There seems to be a new, rather distancing trend in society: most of the lovely young ladies walking around the splendid surroundings talked endlessly into their cell phones, as if they would rather have been with the person on the other end of the line than at the party, even though it was full of art dealers, celebrity producers, and lords.

I really knew that London was going to be all right in spite of bomb scares, suicide terrorists, and a pervading sense of nervous anxiety when I attended the West End musical Billy Elliot, with music by Elton John. The theater was packed to the rafters, and the audience cheered wildly. I loved the show, which, like the movie on which it is based, is about an 11-year-old boy (the son of a Yorkshire coal miner) who wants to be a ballet dancer. It brought me to tears a couple of times.

I always thought Lord and Lady Black were a fascinating couple, and I still do. There is no question that, despite protests to the contrary, Conrad Black, who is 61, faces serious times ahead, including a trial and the possibility of a prison term. After F. David Radler, his partner and friend for more than 35 years, arranged in August to plead guilty to charges of criminal fraud and cooperate with the authorities, many legal experts felt it was inevitable that Black would be indicted. Considering Black's age, I am reminded of the tradition established recently by WorldCom's Bernie Ebbers and Adelphia's John Rigas, both of whom will probably spend the rest of their lives behind bars. Not too long ago the Blacks were seen everywhere in London, New York, and Palm Beach, where they maintained elaborate residences. For several years the annual dinner given by Hollinger International, Black's media company, with its dazzling board of directors, was a prime social event in New York.

In addition to being a business tycoon, Conrad is an eminent historian and the author of a distinguished book on Franklin D. Roosevelt, which received the kind of laudatory reviews that could have put it on The New York Times's best-seller list. There had been great anticipation over the party to launch the book at the Four Seasons restaurant in New York, given by such luminaries of the social world as Annette de la Renta, Marie-Josée Kravis, and Jayne Wrightsman. I was present at that party, and I hope I won't offend the hostesses when I say what a flop it was. Between the time the invitations were mailed and the day of the party, the financial scandal concerning Black and his empire had broken in every paper. The word around New York was that the grand ladies giving the party all wished that Lord Black would cancel it, but he didn't, or wouldn't. For such a hot invitation, the party was sparsely attended. The hostesses were not in the usual greeting position, at the top of the stairs. They remained together at the back of the room with Lady Black, who wore a coat with a high collar that masked her face. People talked in whispers, saying things like "Do you think Conrad's going to jail?" and "Let's get out of here." Only Black seemed unperturbed as he autographed books and talked to a financial reporter from the New York Post. Soon after that, the Blacks disappeared from the scene.

I knew Lady Black in another life. In the early 70s, when I was in the movie business in Hollywood, I produced a film called The Panic in Needle Park, starring Al Pacino in his first major role and written by my brother and sister-in-law John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion. The film was initially to be made at Joseph Levine's Avco-Embassy, but after many months it was dropped by Levine and picked up by Richard Zanuck and David Brown, who were running Twentieth Century Fox. At Avco-Embassy, we had had a Canadian director, and he had a Canadian girlfriend named Barbara Amiel. I remember her vividly. She wore jeans and was a bit of a hippie. She was beautiful, funny, and very, very smart. When the film moved to Fox, Jerry Schatzberg directed it, and it won a prize at Cannes. I forgot all about Barbara Amiel.

Years passed. In 1994, I was at a Rothschild ball in London, for which Nicky Haslam had transformed a huge art gallery into a replica of El Morocco, the swank New York nightclub of the 30s and 40s, with its blue-and-white zebra-striped banquettes and white palm trees. I checked the place card next to me and it read, "Barbara Black," which meant nothing to me. When the lady herself, wearing a blue-and-white couture dress from Paris, arrived at the table, I was bowled over by her elegance. It took me a few minutes to make the connection that this was Barbara with the blue jeans from 23 years earlier. She was still beautiful, still funny, and still very smart. She said she had a column in The Daily Telegraph, which her husband owned. She hadn't married the Canadian director from Needle Park days, but she had married a trio of other guys before Conrad Black, a fellow Canadian, who subsequently became a British citizen and a lord of the realm. Somewhere I have a picture of us that night in deep conversation, probably talking about how we had risen in the intervening years to be seated side by side at a Rothschild ball. We never became close friends, but we were party friends, and we always had a laugh or two. After the scandal hit Conrad last year, I didn't hear much about them.

Charles and Camilla are known humorously as "the Cornwalls."

Then came the news that they were suddenly being seen again at fashionable London parties. Since I was heading to England for the pulping of Empress Bianca, I sent Barbara an e-mail asking if I could have lunch or tea with her while I was there. She chose not to see me, but she told me so very nicely. "I honestly don't want to be in your diary for all sorts of reasons, none of which have to do with you," she e-mailed. "I haven't spoken to the press since this rather surreal thing began." In her position, I probably would have said exactly the same thing. She said that she was going to Leeds the next day, and that they were leaving for France the day after that.

On my second afternoon in London, I was writing in my room when I decided, for no special reason, to get a manicure in the barbershop off the lobby. To my amazement, sitting in the first barber chair was the embattled media magnate himself, Lord Black, looking every inch a titled gentleman, dressed in country tweeds. We shook hands and chatted briefly. There was no sense that his life was in disarray. They were staying at the Barclay Hotel, he said. I had read that his beautiful London house—actually two houses put together as one—had been sold for $23 million to a former Mexican beauty queen, who was ripping out all the improvements the Blacks had made. I told Conrad that I had met one of his lawyers, Jesse Finkelstein, at the Disney trial in Delaware last year. He complimented Finkelstein, told me he had followed the Disney trial closely, and said how well he thought Michael Ovitz had performed on the stand. He said he had hired Brendan Sullivan, of the Washington law firm Williams and Connolly, to be his lawyer. It has been written of Sullivan that he is "the quintessential litigator, the first choice of almost everyone in trouble—if you can get him." The lawyer is probably best known for representing Colonel Oliver North in the Iran-contra scandal and Housing and Urban Development secretary Henry Cisneros in a case involving false statements made to the F.B.I. He boasts that since the 1970s no client of his has gone to jail. "We're off to France in the morning," said Lord Black as he got up from the barber chair. We shook hands again, and I said, "Love to Barbara." I refrained from saying "Good luck," which would suggest that he was in trouble, and neither his appearance nor his attitude gave any indication of that. After Paris, he said, they were stopping at the Hôtel de Paris, in Monte Carlo.

During my trip I met Gary Pulsifer, the publisher of Arcadia Books, which brought out Empress Bianca. Pulsifer went along with Anthony Julius, who was acting for Lily Safra, and agreed to withdraw and pulp all unsold copies of the book, since his company was not rich enough to take on a lawsuit with the billionairess. He is a very decent man, quiet, intellectual, an active member of PEN, the international literary society, and utterly bewildered to find himself at the center of a controversy involving such vivid characters as the very prominent Lily Safra and the fearless, slightly reckless Lady Colin Campbell.

Lady Colin Campbell's very theatrical, and has a camp humor.

Lady Colin Campbell has an extraordinary personal history. Born in Jamaica in 1949 with a genital deformity, she was raised as a boy. She had a hard time as a child and quickly learned how to be a fighter. She had corrective surgery in New York when she was 21, and four years later made a socially spectacular marriage to Lord Colin Campbell, the son of the Duke of Argyll. It was a short and disastrous marriage, but she has carried the title ever since. She had telephoned me twice the previous month when she was in the Cayman Islands attending her mother's funeral to talk about the tempest that was building in England over her book, so I had an enormous curiosity to meet her in person. She lives primarily in France, but she keeps a small house in Belgravia. Gary Pulsifer told me she was flying over from France for the night to attend the ballet at Covent Garden, and he asked me if I'd like to meet her at her house before she went out. We got there a few minutes before 5:30, the appointed time, and Lady Colin Campbell wasn't ready. She was still in the shower. She answered the door in only a towel, but she returned 15 minutes later beautifully dressed in an aquamarine tunic and trousers, carrying her jewels, her lipstick, a bottle of chilled champagne, and three glasses.

"Not for me," I said, indicating the champagne.

"You don't drink?"

"No."

"Do you want water?"

"Yes."

"Bor-ing."

She reminded me of Annette Bening in Being Julia. She's very theatrical, and she has a camp sense of humor. She kept holding her champagne glass out for Pulsifer to refill. She put on her lipstick, her necklace, and several rings, including one with a large aquamarine. She told me that aquamarine is her favorite color, and that she is having a tiara made of aquamarines.

She seemed almost eager in her determination to take on the powerful Lily Safra. She printed out on her computer a copy of a five-page, single-spaced letter she had written to Anthony Julius. The main thrust of the letter was to tell Julius that he had no right to be representing Lily Safra against her, because his company, Mishcon de Reya, had once represented Lady Colin Campbell in a lawsuit. Then she proceeded to tear him apart. I know that the Daily Mail has a copy of the letter, but the editors have apparently decided not to print it.

Suddenly Lady Colin Campbell looked at her watch and gasped at the lateness of the hour. The curtain, she said, was at 7:30. No sooner had we piled into her hired car than she started to give orders to the driver. "I must be at Covent Garden at 7:28 on the dot. I can't be late. Someone is waiting there for me. Go through the red light. It's all right." She ended up by jumping out of the car and running to meet her escort, waving back to us and calling, "Good-bye, good-bye."

Unfortunately, I had to leave London before the pulping of Empress Bianca.

My sister-in-law Joan Didion had been married to my brother John Gregory Dunne for 40 years when he died, in December 2003. I have pictures in my scrapbooks of their wedding in San Juan Bautista, California, in 1964, and of the reception afterward at the Lodge at Pebble Beach. Joan was then at the beginning of her literary fame, which came into full blossom in the 60s and has endured through the decades that followed. Her readers are legion and they are passionate. The thing about having a celebrity in the family for 40 years is that you eventually get used to it and cease to marvel, even while watching the adoration she invariably stirs in fans when they meet her. She has always been wonderful to my children: at Christmas, she would give them exactly the right gifts, unique and appropriate for each one's age and interest. She adores her daughter, Quintana, and she adored John. They were total partners in life. John started roughly half of his sentences with the words, "Joan says," and then he'd quote her on whatever subject was under discussion. Suddenly Joan's life crashed down around her. John died in their New York apartment the night before New Year's Eve, while Quintana was in a coma at Beth Israel hospital, where she had been put into the intensive-care unit on Christmas Night. Quintana's illness lasted for months and is ongoing. It was the worst year of my sister-in-law's life, and I, along with her friends and nephews, watched her cope with the vicissitudes of sudden death and grave illness. I have just read the galleys of her new book, The Year of Magical Thinking, an account of that period of double misfortune. It is unsparing, enormously personal, tough, and brave. I was deeply moved. I'll never cease to marvel at Joan again.