After the Egypt novels, Drury returned to Washington in a succession of novels that were only tenuously related. "Anna Hastings" (1977) is more a novel about journalism than politics. He returned to the Senate in 1979 with "Mark Coffin, U.S.S.", which was followed by the two-part "The Hill of Summer" (1981) and "The Roads of Earth" (1984), though the four books are not a series. Drury also wrote stand-alone novels, "Decision" (1983) about the Supreme Court, and "Pentagon" (1986) and "A Thing of State" (1995) about the State Department. His career ended with the trilogy of books following the lives of fictional members of his Stanford graduating class: "Toward What Bright Glory?" (1994), "Into What Far Harbor?"(1997), and "Public Men" (1998). John J. Miller wrote that readers are "able to mark through Washington's major institutions with Drury and his novels ... Television producers who want to develop a show to compete with Netflix's "House of Cards" would do well to look to Drury."