Volume 4: Life and Death by James Davies organizes over two hundred life-and-death problems and examples into thirty-six short chapters. Each of the 36 chapters is devoted to a single concept or life and death formation, beginning with the most basic life and death formation, the unsettled three, progressing through notchers, the L groups, the J groups, and Carpenter's Square. Chapters consist of a page of explanation followed by five or six problems that build upon that explanation.