Some people keep their cell phone glued to their ear while traveling on business. Others listen to books on tape. Mike Abrams, on the other hand, likes to figure out how to complicate the lives of the fictional characters in his murder mystery novels.

The time spent scribbling plot ideas at 75 mph on the interstate and countless hours on his laptop in airports have paid off for Abrams, whose first novel, “Lethal Remedy,” was published in March. He’s now working on a second novel, a thriller that combines murder and an experimental virus that’s run amuck in a small town.

“Some of my best ideas come while driving,” said Abrams, who said he sometimes has to exit the highway to develop a particularly good plot twist. As executive vice president of the Iowa Medical Society for the past 10 years, he’s had a lot of windshield time, not to mention time spent in airports and hotel rooms across the country.

“I’ve had wonderful airport-time writing,” he said. “An artist might spend two hours in an airport sketching strangers. Often, I’m in an airport looking at people and I’ll describe them physically and then use that for a description of a character in the novel.”

Abrams, who prior to coming to Iowa had served as director of government affairs for the Indiana State Medical Association, got the idea for “Lethal Remedy” while working as the association’s lobbyist at the Indiana Statehouse.

“It dawned on me in that capacity that bodies of law can be subject to such tiny accidents of history, that you could have a major public policy change because a legislator has an accident on the way to the Capitol and is late for a committee meeting,” he said. “Suddenly, a vote that might have been tied might go in a direction it might not have gone.

“So I thought, ‘What would happen if someone became so obsessed with an issue that they would murder for their perspective to carry?’ At the time I was reading a lot of John Grisham books, and I thought, ‘Gee, could I write like that?’”

The plot of “Lethal Remedy” centers on Elizabeth Ralston, a young attorney who is elected to replace an Indiana legislator who was brutally slain during the legislative session.

Setting the story in Indiana rather than Iowa gave him the freedom to create some “very nefarious characters,” he said.

“In fact, once ‘Lethal Remedy’ was published, I did call the [Indiana] speaker of the house, who is a good friend of mine, and told him, ‘You know, I took some horrible potshots at the Indiana Legislature in this book, and I really don’t believe that about you or the House of Representatives.”

Abrams said the novel contains a few recognizable surnames borrowed from Iowa residents, such as Harold Redwine, whose name was inspired by John Redwine, a physician and former state senator from Sioux City.

“In the second one, I used a lot more names from Iowa, just because I can’t write a character until I have a name,” he said. “I tend to name them after people I know, and people whose names I like.”

Though he had made several attempts at writing the first novel since the mid-1980s, it wasn’t until three years ago that he dusted off the incomplete manuscript.      “I had read a book about how to write a novel, and I decided that I needed to finish this,” Abrams said. “Then I don’t care what happens to it. I can put it in a three-ring binder and put it in a drawer forever, but it will be out of me.”

As he began working on it again, “I really started to like it, and it become very therapeutic,” he said. “It became my way of winding down.”

After attending a summer session of the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he asked the instructor if she would review his manuscript, and her comments helped him get it into shape for submission to publishing houses. After receiving “a very respectable number of rejection letters,” his work was accepted by Hilliard & Harris, a Maryland-based publisher specializing in that genre.

Abrams said he’s learned a lot about book publishing in the past several months. He’s also invested a lot of his own time in promoting his book, by dovetailing book signings and radio interviews with trips he makes across the country for the Iowa Medical Society. He has a radio interview scheduled later this month in Los Angeles, for instance.      “What you hope is that someone in that community will pick up the phone and ask the local Barnes & Noble, ‘Hey, I heard about this book, will you order a copy for me?’ And maybe they’ll order a few extra copies in case there’s additional interest in it.”

Abrams said he has completed about two-thirds of his second novel, which he is hopeful will also be published. “I like this one even better than the first one,” he said.

Because Abrams’ wife, Mary Ann, is a pediatrician, her critique of the second novel has been particularly helpful in helping him to accurately use medical terms, Abrams said. “And my kids think it’s cool; they’ve been supportive, too.”

Abrams hasn’t a clue yet how well “Lethal Remedy” is selling, as he hasn’t received his first royalty check. But he’s planning on keeping his day job for now.

“My guess is that, especially for a first-timer, it’s not going to be exceedingly profitable,” he said. “It’s a wonderful, fun endeavor. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t enjoy it.”

“Lethal Remedy” is available at Barnes & Noble Booksellers, 4550 University Ave. in West Des Moines, The Book Store at 606 Locust St. in Des Moines, online at Amazon.com, or it can be ordered by any book retailer.