The Burning Time (William Carver)

'Smart and topical' Financial Times (An FT Best New Thriller 2023)

'A compelling, fast-paced thriller' Sun

Australian inventor and geoengineer Clive Winner is the genius who brought the Great Barrier Reef back from the brink, yet his ambition goes well beyond that. He wants to save the planet.

For the all-powerful fossil fuel industry, Winner is their 'get out of jail free card'. If he can engineer a solution to climate change, business can continue as usual.

When old-school journalist William Carver is tipped off by a trusted Whitehall source that climate scientists have begun to go missing in suspicious circumstances, his gut instinct tells him to follow the story. It rapidly becomes clear that scientists, green campaigners and well-intentioned politicians are in the firing line; William Carver and his colleagues must move fast to find out who is behind the disappearances. They know the journalist's job is to speak truth to power - but first you must uncover that truth and this time it's buried deeper than ever.

Racing between Sydney, New York, Seville and London, The Burning Time is an intelligent, timely and fast-paced thriller for the 21st century.

'A tribute to and a demonstration of the importance of traditional investigative journalism' Literary Review

'Deftly plotted . . . a propulsive read' Straits Times

'The Burning Time is terrific. [It] will be a classic of the genre' Peter Hennessy, author of A Duty of Care

'A wonderfully taut piece of plotting [. . .] endlessly inventive storytelling' Edward Stourton