With the success of "Advise and Consent", Drury left "The New York Times." He became a political correspondent for "Reader's Digest", but wrote very little for it. From then on, his only major publications were his books. He followed "Advise and Consent" with several sequels. "A Shade of Difference" (1962) is set a year after "Advise and Consent," and uses the United Nations as a backdrop for portraying racial tensions in the American South and in Africa. Drury then turned his attention to the next presidential election after those events with "Capable of Honor" (1966) and "Preserve and Protect" (1968). "Preserve and Protect" had a cliffhanger ending—an assassination in which the victim is not identified.  He then wrote two alternative finales based on two different outcomes of the assassination: "Come Nineveh, Come Tyre" (1973) and "The Promise of Joy" (1975). The last two books are set in the middle of a full international crisis.