Rogue Justice
Stacey Abrams
May 23, 2023
Doubleday
Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
This is a great book! Second in the Avery Keene series, but I recommend you start at the beginning.
Political thriller that I couldn’t put down. I sure hope there is a third book coming out soon.
5 stars

WOW. I don’t even know how to talk about Rogue Justice. This will probably be one of my top books of 2023. This book pulled me in and just wouldn’t let go. I had dreams about it. I thought about it between times when I could read it. I tried to convince a friend to read it immediately because I couldn’t wait to discuss it (sorry for the pressure Christine!)

This is the second book in the Avery Keene series and I sure hope there will be more!! I do suggest reading them in order but it’s okay to go into this if you don’t remember everything from the first book. This picks up a few months after that ended and everyone is dealing with the consequences.

I didn’t read any of the synopsis before I started and want to give you that opportunity too. So I’ll just say this is a political thriller that will keep you flying through the pages and scare you with possibilities. At one point I started making safety plans for what I would do in a certain situation. Wow. What a book.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance reading copy.

From the end of "While Justice Sleeps", Ms. Abrams continues with her Avery Keene character and the impending impeachment of a US president. Lots of twists and turns and anacronyms of governmental departments/agencies/titles, etc., that it gets confusing. It keeps you going and is very suspenseful. Thanks again NetGalley for the advance reading copy!

Please tell me Stacey Abrams is writing the 3rd book in this series! Like her first book "While Justice Sleeps," this one doesn't disappoint. "Rogue Justice" is a well researched, intelligent and incredibly gripping thriller. Avery Keene, the reluctant heroine draws the reader into the plot and makes this fast paced story relatable. Abrams' extensive legal and political background shine throughout.

3.75 stars

Stacey Abrams continues with the character of Avery Keene, Supreme Court clerk and heroine of While Justice Sleeps. I would highly recommend reading the first book for a much better plot grasp as much carries over.

Avery's previous adventures led to the impeachment trial of the current U.S. president. Avery is the focus of much negative attention and is trying to fly under the radar. While at a semi-boring seminar, she is slipped some information from a political staff member who gets murdered while Avery is watching several minutes later.

And then the plot is off and rolling. This is an over the top political thriller with assassins, threats to the political and physical and computer infrastructure of the U.S. and lots of bad guys. Avery is an appealing character with her friends' support. She has integrity and a nose for prevarication. If you like a page turner with lots of action, you will love this. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Well, that was quite a ride. Once again, Stacey Abrams has concocted a complex plot that hinges on her knowledge of D.C. politics and administration and on her highly-skilled heroine who manages to connect dots and pull random facts together.

It opens with a confusing scenario, with a president who has been pushed out but is wheedling his way back into office to face impeachment and, soon enough, a reelection campaign. At the same time, a woman in South Africa is plotting something, with highly-developed technology to use for her ends. Avery is in trouble, too, with her boss, a supreme court justice, still in a coma and only the chief justice keeping her employed while controversy rages around her. It's a lot, and that's before the real plot starts.

While I enjoyed the book, it does require both the patience to keep the threads straight and an ability to suspend disbelief. The characters are all a bit larger than life and the plot is convoluted. It's something those who love a plot-driven thrill ride would enjoy, while those who are more attracted to character development and graceful writing may find it a bit lacking.

While I liked Abrams' first book, "While Justice Sleeps," a bit better than "Rogue Justice," I still felt this second book in the series is a real page-turner. Both books reflect Stacey Abrams' understanding of the ins and outs of the government, and I am amazed at Abrams' intelligence. Her ability to put together intricate plots "from the headlines" is outstanding.

"Rogue Justice" begins shortly after the ending of "While Justice Sleeps." A powerful group of characters is working to take down the nation's power grid, a topic often concerning to those of us who think about the possibility in real life. The motivation is revenge, a powerful reason to destroy lives and property. Avery Keene, Supreme Court law clerk, is right in the middle of the hunt again, and she and her hacker boyfriend stay one step ahead of the bad guys, but just barely. Abrams' builds in multiple twists and turns to the plot, and her knowledge of how the branches of government work--or don't--helps the plot move at a super-charged rate.

I think the reason I liked the first book better is that this one had so many different characters to keep straight. While the author introduced them in separate chapters, I still had to literally write a list. I also am not as conversant with all the technology and government agencies involved, so that, too, was a bit difficult.

However, I highly recommend this second book in the Avery Keene series to readers, especially those who follow politics. At least in this fictional world, the good guys have a chance to win.

Thanks to Doubleday and NetGalley for allowing me to read this book pre-publication and give an honest review.

Thanks to Doubleday and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this title prior to publication. I read and loved the first book in this series, so I was excited to read this one. In Rogue, Justice, Avery Keene is again drawn into an investigation of a secret court, extortion, terrorism, and politics. She receives a file and burner phone from an Idaho federal judge's law clerk and then watches this stranger's death soon after, and she figure out who to trust and what sinister plot is unfolding in the US before it is too late. I really love Avery's ability to research and see patterns in the data very quickly - she is fascinating to read about. I found this book propulsive and thrilling - Abrams' knowledge of the government really shines. I did find the pacing a little clunky at times, especially when the author had to explain concepts, but I love these characters and would continue to read more in this series.

This is most definitely a revenge fantasy plot that comes with Trigger Warnings for sexual assault. It is not the protagonist who is victimized, but rather one villain going against another.

I admit I was at a loss without having read While Justice Sleeps. Author Stacey Abrams gives the important facts that unraveled in the previous book (kidnapping of her mother and a genocide plot). Those facts are presented in tidbits throughout the book as protagonist Avery Keene continues her fight against the corrupt President Stokes, his Cabinet, and Congress. 

Abrams is great at weaving a complicated mystery. Rogue Justice is complex. Even the characters refer to the primary villain's plans as multi-faceted and multi-vector. Readers are always in on the mystery of who the villain is, but the why comes out in the second half. Former U.S. Naval officer Hayden Burgess is now an uberhacker that has a brilliant team of hackers, blackmail victims, and one assassin on her side. Burgess has a mission with many avenues to get revenge and to reward the few people who helped her in a time of crisis.

There are a multitude of government agencies I had never heard of before. The character list is enormous too. Keeping all the courts and agencies straight with the alphabet soup of initialisms was not easy. One of the things Abrams does well is explain all the technical jargon. The hacking minutiae isn't over-abundant. There's enough to explain what all these people are doing and why, but those explanations may be fifty pages away.

Abrams has created a protagonist that anyone can like and appreciate. Avery Keene is young twenty-seven-year-old black Supreme Court law clerk! She also has an eidetic memory and talent for finding patterns. She's never described as neurodivergent like people have theorized about Sherlock Holmes or blatantly saw in TV character Adrian Monk. Avery is responsible, skilled, social, and also a problem for people of power. She's responsible for the impeachment trial of President Stokes which is something readers are spoon-fed as a continuing arc from book one, While Justice Sleeps. Her relationships are made of strong bonds whether it's about her mother in rehab, her boyfriend Jared (former Navy lieutenant), or her best friends Noah (attorney) and Ling (doctor).

Though the Stokes impeachment is a crucial factor of the plot, it's not the struggle that takes certain stage in Rogue Justice. Avery, FBI agents, Jared (an IT security genius), and her friends have two distinct battles: the White House and then Hayden Burgess. Hayden and her team of hackers are trying to dismantle the country's power grid, steal billions in cryptocurrency, and get revenge for how she was treated after being sexually assaulted by her submarine's captain. There is almost too much going on. It's more complicated than any Tom Clancy novel.

Also on Hayden's side, there's an ex-Mossad assassin by the name of Nyx, who is freely murdering and attacking people. Nyx has this interesting role where she's not the actual villain, but she is murdering people left and right. Still, she's a killer for hire and the one who gets the privilege of acting out physically what Hayden has dreamed of to get revenge on her former captain.

There might be a few plot holes or maybe this book is too advanced for my reading comprehension. The second half of the book flew quickly and every chapter's ending made me want to keep reading. The second half contains those nuggets of detail about Hayden's plans so readers could get into her mind and appreciate her motive. The memories and trauma of the sexual assault have enough detail to glean what happened right around midway through the book. It isn't explicitly parsed until much later.

Summary:

It's clear that Stacey Abrams enjoyed pulling from real life when crafting the parts of Avery Keene's role in a presidential impeachment. Rogue Justice is well-researched, but not necessarily accessible for a light reader looking for a book to polish off at the beach or during a relaxing a weekend. It is strongly recommended that people read While Justice Sleeps before Rogue Justice.

"The #1 New York Times bestselling author of While Justice Sleeps returns with another riveting and intricately plotted thriller, in which a blackmailed federal judge, a secret court and a brazen murder may lead to an unprecedented national crisis.

Supreme Court clerk Avery Keene is back, trying to get her feet on solid ground after unraveling an international conspiracy in While Justice Sleeps. But as the sparks of Congressional hearings and political skirmishes swirl around her, Avery is approached at a legal conference by Preston Davies, an unassuming young man and fellow law clerk to a federal judge in Idaho. Davies believes his boss, Judge Francesca Whitner, was being blackmailed in the days before she died. Desperate to understand what happened, he gives Avery a file, a burner phone, and a fearful warning that there are highly dangerous people involved.

Another shocking murder leads Avery to a list of names - all federal judges - and, alarmingly, all judges on the FISA Court (the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court), also known as America's "secret court." It is this body which grants permission to the government to wiretap Americans or spy on corporations suspected of terrorism. As Avery digs deeper, she begins to see a frightening pattern - and she worries that something far more sinister may be unfolding inside the nation's third branch of government. With lives at stake, Avery must race the clock and an unexpected enemy to find the answer.

Drawn from today's headlines and woven with her unique insider perspective, Stacey Abrams combines twisting plotlines, wry wit, and clever puzzles to create another immensely entertaining suspense novel."

Damn I love Stacey Abrams.

I am really enjoying this series from Stacey Abrams, and it will appeal to a wide range of readers. Abrams is a strong writer with great execution skills. This one is action-packed, and I was flying through the pages waiting to see what would happen next. The pacing was excellent, and the plot never went in a direction that would make me want to chuck the book across the room. Our main characters are further developed in this book (I don't think you HAVE to read book 1 to jump into this one, but it definitely helps and I would recommend reading it first), and I enjoyed getting to know them even more. I love the little shades at some current political figures who feature prominently in the news these days. I cannot wait to see what Abrams does next!

This is the second book in a series and it could be read as a stand alone. There is plenty of intrigue and a good plot. You have to pay attention on this one, there are a lot of characters to keep track of, I was confused a couple times trying to keep them straight. For the most part I was entertained and I would read another book by this author. Thank you to net galley for an advanced readers copy.

I love me some Stacey Abrams & I really enjoyed this book. This was a sequel and it worked super well (pls read this first one before this!) I'm so glad that I got the chance to read it early and will definitely be recommending it to multiple people who enjoy these as well. I enjoyed the characters and especially enjoyed the writing by this author. I'm excited to see what Stacey comes out with next as I'll definitely be reading it! Thank you to the publisher for my early copy of this book

It felt so good to be reading a sequel that felt like a sequel. I'm positive that's a sentence that reads a little foolish, but given my reading year the second books in things have been flopping. Though here the story feels much less like it's a definite conclusion, and so that that does help things a little. At the same time the more time I spent reading this book the more I also started to wonder just how long a series like this could run for when already the stakes feel pretty intense.

There was a quality to this book that felt like I was a kid again. Stay with me because I don't mean for that to be a drag or symbolize that the book reads younger than the intended audience. There was simply a quality to this book that reminded me of being in middle school and watching a really good movie.

So much of the media created over the past decade has this essence looming over it that the alternate history or near future depicted is decidedly a little too close for comfort, and there is something of that in this book? On page it feel ludicrous that the consequences of the last book could lead into the plot of this book but then you look up from the pages and remember where we are in the real world and the way the narrative was able to have this interplay between something set contemporaneously while playing with nostalgia but also keeping the tension... it just clicked.

As for Avery Keene I liked being back with her. I still don't know how Abrams found the time to get this book out, but I loved it even more than the last one. I think that it handled raising the stakes in a way that felt believable and not clownish, while also subverting some expectations that also felt believable given the game being played here.

Sure, there are some scenes that I would have personally loved a little more of, but overall it was definitely time well spent.

Rogue Justice by Stacey Abrams is the second book in the Avery Keene series, which is a mysterious political thriller sure to keep the reader at the edge of their seat. I was excited to dive back into the series & I am happy to say that it landed with a perfect splash.

Stacey Abrams continues to be her awe-inspiring self with her boundless talent & wicked sharp mind sure to rival the main character in this series, Avery Keene. I’ve now read 3 of her books, both fiction & non-fiction, & loved them all. I sit in awe of her incredible power & brilliance.

Her knowledge of politics along with her phenomenal storytelling & her ability to create astonishingly complex & realistic mysteries makes for such fantastic political thrillers.

Avery Keene is such a fantastic & formidable main character with her massive intelligence, stubborn will power, computer-like puzzle solving skills & an unmatched bravery. She is the perfect combination smart enough to wrestle with the elite & evil leaders of Washington & the world & slowly unravel their heinous wrongdoings. I sincerely hope Stacey Abrams continues to write more books because I will happily read anything she writes!

If anyone is looking for a brilliant political thriller, I highly recommend the Avery Keene series!

Massive thanks to NetGalley & Doubleday for the free arc, which I voluntarily read & reviewed.

Content Warnings: This book mentions &/or contains murder, kidnapping, violence, rape & assault.

I will post this on social media & Amazon around release date & add links once I do!

Review in progress and to come.

I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review

Rogue Justice is an excellent follow up and book two in the Avery Keene series. I really like Avery as the main character, and I appreciate how she moves and makes choices with agency and direction. Stacey Abrams has such a solid grasp on politics as a politician and activist herself, and that is even more evident in this book. There's a pending impeachment, reelection, and Supreme Court Justice appointments all interwoven in the book and they're explained in a way that felt accessible to me to easily understand without being too mired in the details. The plot focuses heavily on the questions and concerns surrounding the US's reliance on the internet and the cybersecurity vulnerabilities that could be exploited. Overall, this is a solid political thriller, and I'd recommend this book if you've read and enjoyed While Justice Sleeps, and I recommend While Justice Sleeps to anyone who is interested in some political/legal mystery thrillers set in the US.

Some content warnings to be aware of: sexual assault, stalking, attempted strangulation.

A huge thank you to the publisher for sending me an eArc of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts!

Avery is back! I have missed her so much! Yet another great political thriller by Stacey Abrams! I really enjoyed the wild ride of this one. It was incredibly enjoyable and will recommend as a must read!

This suffers from a lot of the same issues the previous novel in this series did (randomly switching POV, laborious diction and syntax) but I did enjoy it more than While Justice Sleeps. I'll admit that there were several chapters where I had not a single clue what I was reading, and there were at least a dozen characters who didn't need to exist, but I had more fun with this than I expected to.

Rogue Justice, the second in this series by Stacey Abrams, will be released on May 23, 2023. Doubleday books provided an early galley for review.

This one picks up four months after the end of the last book, and that fallout is being addressed right at the start of this one. The reader is able to easily see how the cast has progressed, giving a realistic feel for the advancement of time.

Of course, there is also a new threat that involves parties seeking power through manipulation of the United States legal branch. Abrams describes the action and danger well and continues to explain organizational and technical terms in a reader-friendly manner that fits the story flow and tone.

She also has a knack for reflecting current political themes into her story without directly referencing them verbatim while adapting them to fit into her fictional world. I like that her Washington DC has a different cast than our own, even if the rules of agencies and the nature of human behavior still matches up. She has continued to add to her world-building that, hopefully, we'll see more of in future installments of this series.