The crime at the center of Decision takes place in South Carolina and is prosecuted according to the laws of that state. At the center are characters who are real, ambitious, murderous, caring: all the stuff of Washington and political life.' And when it reaches the Supreme Court, Barbour faces the greatest challenge of his life: recuse himself and allow a probable deadlock, or take on the case and either follow his anti-death penalty principles or spurn them and seek justice for his daughter.ĭiane Rehm, on her nationally syndicated radio show, said that 'Decision takes us inside the Supreme Court, as the human beings on that Court struggle with their personal biases and their public duties. The deterioration of the criminal justice system is illuminated as ambitious minds with their own agendas swirl around the terrorist's compelling case. Tay Barbour has just achieved his ultimate goal-a seat on the US Supreme Court-when his marriage crumbles and a terrorist bombing puts his daughter in a coma. The novel was out of print for several years until WordFire Press reissued it in paperback and e-book formats in 2014. It is a standalone work set in a different fictional timeline from Drury's 1959 novel Advise and Consent, which earned him a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Decision is a 1983 political novel by Allen Drury which follows a newly appointed Supreme Court Justice as he is faced with the most difficult decision of his life.

Advise and consent novel