While Justice Sleeps: A Novel

by Stacey Abrams

Book, 2021

Description

Fiction. Suspense. Thriller. HTML:From celebrated national leader and bestselling author Stacey Abrams, While Justice Sleeps is a gripping, complexly plotted thriller set within the halls of the U.S. Supreme Court. "Brilliant and mesmerizing. Abrams follows in Dan Brown�??s footprint with this masterfully plotted thriller that unfolds like the ultimate chess match�??bold move to bolder move with lives hanging in the balance."�??Lisa Gardner "Stacey Abrams is a true novelist, and While Justice Sleeps is a first-class legal thriller, favorably compared to many of the best, starting with The Pelican Brief, which it brings to mind. It�??s fast-paced and full of surprises�??a terrific read."�??Scott Turow Avery Keene, a brilliant young law clerk for the legendary Justice Howard Wynn, is doing her best to hold her life together�??excelling in an arduous job with the court while also dealing with a troubled family. When the shocking news breaks that Justice Wynn�??the cantankerous swing vote on many current high-profile cases�??has slipped into a coma, Avery�??s life turns upside down. She is immediately notified that Justice Wynn has left instructions for her to serve as his legal guardian and power of attorney. Plunged into an explosive role she never anticipated, Avery finds that Justice Wynn had been secretly researching one of the most controversial cases before the court�??a proposed merger between an American biotech company and an Indian genetics firm, which promises to unleash breathtaking results in the medical field. She also discovers that Wynn suspected a dangerously related conspiracy that infiltrates the highest power corridors of Washington. As political wrangling ensues in Washington to potentially replace the ailing judge whose life and survival Avery controls, she begins to unravel a carefully constructed, chesslike sequence of clues left behind by Wynn. She comes to see that Wynn had a much more personal stake in the controversial case and realizes his complex puzzle will lead her directly into harm�??s way in order to find the truth. While Justice Sleeps is a cunningly crafted, sophisticated novel, layered with myriad twists and a vibrant cast of characters. Drawing on her astute inside knowledge of the court and political landscape, Stacey Abrams shows herself to be not only a force for good in politics and voter fairness but also a major new talent in suspense fiction. With an audio-exclusive Original Introduction… (more)

Media reviews

The New Republic

While Justice Sleeps is a thriller, an “airport novel” in the very best sense of the term—it’s fun, fast-paced, absurd, designed to be inhaled in the space of a single flight. It’s also a revealing window into its author’s political imagination—what she wants, what she believes, what

she’d do in a position of power....In spite of the novel’s dramatic tone and deliberately absurd elements, While Justice Sleeps ultimately allows its characters little growth. The heroes emerge heroic, the villains are dragged away in infamy, and the political system that Justice Wynn describes as spiraling into “intellectual torpor” and “hubris and narcissism”—a political system crying out to be drowned in a “righteous flood”—remains unaltered. It’s striking that Avery has overcome so much adversity and reached the pinnacle of accomplishment for a new lawyer but has no clear ambitions beyond cashing in at a corporate law firm. After paying off her loans, what next?

Show Less

— 2 more

Christian Science Monitor

“While Justice Sleeps” features a boatload of colorful characters, including a resentful wife, an estranged son, law associates, FBI and Homeland Security agents, media personalities, high-tech engineers, and a female chief justice. As the stakes rise, and murderous villains lurk, readers

come to understand that horrific moral and ethical boundaries have been crossed. The unfolding morality tale, “the labyrinthine game the law demanded,” plays out in the final fireworks scene at the Supreme Court. Abrams plays it to the hilt.

Show Less

New York Times

...explicitly partisan politics plays little role, and Abrams stints on judicial ideology. Still, her enterprise impresses on several counts: that she is willing to risk the jaundiced eye of readers unsympathetic to her public career; that she has the stuff to assay fiction in a new and challenging

genre; and that amid an exceedingly busy life she cares enough about the form to undertake the demanding business of turning an idea into a novel. So the only fair question is not what she might have written, but whether she succeeds on the terms she set herself.... Readers searching for dimensional characters whose inner lives inform a consistently credible narrative won’t find them in this book; its climactic events, and the behaviors of the principals, require a particularly willful suspension of disbelief. Nor do Abrams’s corridors of power exude a sense of real-life verisimilitude — they, too, exist to serve her humming machine. But those desirous of perils and surprises will encounter them in abundance. On that score, Abrams has realized what surely was her chief ambition — not to enlighten, but to entertain.

Show Less