I'm Linda Holmes. Welcome to NPR's Book of the Day. What do you do in your spare time? Gardening? Maybe play a sport? We've got two books today from people who have had big jobs in government and politics, but who in their spare time, if you can call it that, write novels. In a bit, we'll hear about former FBI director James Comey's new thriller. But first, voting rights

activist and former Georgia state legislator Stacey Abrams talks to NPR's Michelle Martin about

her newest novel, Rogue Justice, her second thriller about Supreme Court clerk, Avery Keene.

Abrams says the whole idea of writing about a Supreme Court clerk feels different than it did when she first created the character. And she says when she imagines fictional worlds, she's trying to think about the questions we're not asking.

In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life. Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, Sources and Methods.

NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.

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Former Georgia State Representative Stacey Abrams has one of those resumes that makes you feel bad about yourself, world class education, a distinguished career in the Georgia legislature, a national leader on voting rights, entrepreneur, professor, and she's a prolific author of both

fiction and political strategy. Her most recent book, her 15th, is another novel, and it's out today.

It's her second thriller that features Supreme Court clerk, amateur sleuth, and all-around

savior of democracy, Avery Keene. And Stacey Abrams is with us now to tell us more about it. Welcome.

Thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. It's always a delight. I think people may

remember your first thriller, which features Avery Keen. It's a, you know, a rogue president involved

in international intrigue, a Supreme Court justice who falls into a persistent vegetative state.

It's my recollection that the first draft of this book, everybody passed on it because the president

seemed too absurd and nobody cares about the Supreme Court. I take it, it was different this time

around. Yes. So I wrote it actually in 2010. So there was turmoil, but nothing quite as egregious as I portrayed and while Justice sleeps. And so Reg Justice picks up four months later and really looks at the consequences of confronting a president who's made some egregious mistakes, but where the public is divided about what that means.

We follow her through the political fallout, but she is contacted by someone who recognizes

that one part of our court system is imperiled.

And so Avery has to figure out how broken our systems are by understanding just how fragile our infrastructure

is in this nation. One of the reasons I was curious about this is that your last book dealt with

things that we subsequently had to worry about, like big pharma, bioengineering. This one deals

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