The traditionally slow end-of-year news cycle recently received a jolt when residents of New York and New Jersey reported mysterious drone sightings in the skies over both states. While state and federal government officials have said that there’s no cause for concern, the scenario rang a bell with filmmaker Andrew Davis and investigative journalist Jeff Biggers. The duo recently penned the timely political thriller Disturbing the Bones, which features a drone attack on the streets of Chicago among its many pulse-pounding action sequences.

That’s not the only part of Disturbing the Bones that rhymes with recent realities. The book also features a nuclear incident in Siberia, a global disarmament summit in the Windy City, and a presidential race that pits a press-hating conservative candidate clearly modeled after Donald Trump against a progressive Black woman.

“So much of this book is leaping from the headlines,” notes Biggers, 61, who has authored nine nonfiction books and written for such outlets as The New York Times, The Atlantic and NPR. The continent-hopping story is set in motion by the discovery of a skeleton in rural Illinois that may belong to the a long-missing journalist. That journalist’s now-grown son leaves his job as a Chicago detective to piece together his mother’s disappearance. In the process, he learns of a conspiracy involving a rouge U.S. general that reaches the highest halls of power in the White House and the Pentagon.

“We’re clearly focused on entertainment and keeping you on the edge of your seat, but we also put a lot of research into this novel,” Biggers says. “That comes from my journalism background, and then I’d throw it over to Andy to assemble this amazing thriller.”

As the director of such action movie favorites as The Fugitive and Under Siege, Davis knows how to keep the thrills coming. But he’s also J-school graduate himself, and makes a point of rooting his heightened Hollywood yarns in real world concerns. And, like many of us, he’s got his own concerns about the current state of the real world.

“It’s a scary time,” the 78-year-old filmmaker admits. “We don’t know what’s going to happen next.” That’s why he took comfort in being able to control the narrative unfolding on the page. “It was a good back-and-forth,” Davis says of his collaboration with Biggers, who is making his fiction debut, but has previously written for the theater.

“The story started as a screenplay,” Davis recalls. “But we got frustrated because he had done all this research, and I kept trying to develop the characters and and the realities of how they would behave. So we decided to make it a book—there’s no page limit issues that way!”

We spoke with Biggers and Davis about blending fact and fiction and they’re feelings about the current state of journalism in America.

[This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity]

One of the things I appreciate about the book is that—like an in-depth newspaper or magazine feature—it starts with a small incident and then pulls back to encompass a wider point of view. It reflects both of your experience as journalists.

Andrew Davis: Well, journalism is in a strange state right now. I was just reading about ABC News’ settlement over George Stephanopoulos‘ comments about Donald Trump. The idea that everybody’s got to kiss the ring of the new president in order not to get subjugated to restrictions or lose their licenses is pretty amazing. I think back to being a college student and listening to Walter Cronkite. When he came out against the Vietnam War, it was over! It took a long time, but it did happen. Who’s the next Cronkite now?

Jeff Biggers: In our story, the media plays a role during the summit in Chicago, but we also have this rogue general who is able to create disinformation through technology. Ultimately, people don’t know what’s real anymore. We wanted to tease readers with the idea that we’ve reached this age where it’s hard to tell what’s true and not true. The ability to create [disinformation] and disseminate it is a really powerful and dangerous situation.

It didn’t escape my attention that the general goes on Fox News to propagate his argument. Jeff, you’ve been a guest on several of the news networks—where does Fox fit in your impression of the current media landscape?

Biggers: It’s hard to say, because there are so many offshoots of Fox now that are becoming as important. I’m more concerned about our side of the aisle in terms of news media getting watered down and people not plugging in and listening anymore. The listenership of NPR has dramatically gone down, and after the election you saw MSNBC just kind of plummet. People are getting a lot of their information from social media, and that’s not very in-depth.

On the other hand, as someone from that field, there’s a lot of amazing investigative analysis going on, and I deeply appreciate fellow journalists who are out there rolling up their sleeves. For example, that At the Brink series that W.J. Hennigan is doing at the New York Times about nukes is just riveting. It’s really thorough journalism that’s doing an incredible service.

Davis: Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times has gotten so thin, it’s unbelievable. And that’s one of the biggest papers in the country. So we’re in real trouble in terms trying to get information out, as people are also saying, “I can’t watch the news anymore.” Of course, we’re also now learning that this was a much closer election than people were originally talking about. It’s not a carte blanche [mandate].

Andy, the book was written ahead of Kamala Harris replacing Joe Biden at the head of the Democratic ticket. Did you see that as a possibility and created the candidate in the book accordingly?

Davis: That character is based on Michelle Obama. I grew up on the South Side of Chicago, and she went to the high school near me. I’m very touched that, in our story, the main character is a copy who loses his mother at the age of 14 and comes to Chicago where he’s protected by this woman from the tough kids in the neighborhood. Now she’s running for president and he feels he’s got to be involved with her campaign. It’s a very emotional piece of the story to me that they have this relationship.

Jeff, as someone who had mainly written nonfiction and journalism prior to this, was there any kind of a learning curve?

Biggers: With nonfiction you have these boundaries and protocols, whereas with fiction you’re free to create as you wish. I’ve done a lot of work in the theater, so I was able to bring that experience to the dialogue. One of the key parts of writing fiction is having character speak their truth in a way that you relate to and think is authentic. So that worked out well.

And then once again, I think our novel isa bout taking these stories that are in the headlines and getting them down on the page in a way that makes the reader question what’s going on in the real world. When the New York Times reviewed Under Siege in 1992, they said something along the lines of: “Andrew Davis is blending art and action to ask provocative questions about nuclear weapons.” That’s precisely what we’re trying to do with Disturbing the Bones—blend art and action to ask provocative questions about the media, nuclear weapons and America’s social divisions.

The book ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. Are there plans for a follow-up?

Davis: This is my first time in the book business, and you’re pretty much on your own. For me, it’s a question of whether it makes sense to spend another two or three years writing the next novel. Maybe it’ll be easier, because we’ve got the fabric laid out. Or we can ask AI to take the elements of this book and give us another one! [Laughs]

If a studio or streamer comes calling, would you be interested in turning it into a movie? I could see this becoming an AppleTV+ series.

Biggers: Yeah, we’ve plotted out the next eight movies. [Laughs]

Davis: Well, I think the pilot should be a two-hour movie. It’s funny, I’ve seen a couple of movies in the last few weeks, and the pace is so much faster now then when I did The Fugitive. I saw Gladiator II the other night, and the obvious choice for the detective would be Denzel Washington. So I would love to make a full-length movie out of this with Jeff, and then I’d be open to do something longer form depending on what we came up with. Maybe you should produce it! [Laughs]