TEMPERATURE RISING

A law student stumbles on a conspiracy to hide climate change in Burcat’s thriller.

In 1988, 21-year-old Rutgers University law student Anna Freeman goes to the Institute for Energy Independence in Washington, D.C., to pick up an informational video, which she plans to show to the school’s Ecology and Law Society. While in D.C., she inadvertently stumbles upon a gathering of powerful energy lobbyists coordinating an effort to undermine scientific findings on climate change. When a handsome young IEI executive from Texas named Coy Young who’s at the meeting takes an interest in her, Anna improvises, claiming to be with a lobbying firm. Later, back in New Jersey, her Rutgers professor connects her with the Jersey Devils, a fringe environmentalist group who host clandestine meetings with reporters in dive bars. They urge Anna to go undercover to find out more about the propaganda plan—but they also warn her that the IEI’s intimidating and “deadly dangerous” head of security, Rolf Heftig, was involved in the recent disappearance of a climate scientist. Anna grows closer to Coy and impresses IEI leaders such as the formidable lobbyist Jane Chevalier, who appreciates Anna’s gumption among “a lot of gray, balding male heads.” Soon, Anna’s caught between her moral responsibilities, her feelings for Coy, and the seductive pull of influence and power. A violent prologue promises a thriller that’s closer in spirit to Tom Clancy’s work, but the novel eventually aligns with the institutional suspense novels of writers such as John Grisham. Burcat leans into the familiar beats of double-agent stories—as when Anna smuggles out information by writing it in Hebrew, leading to a wonderful payoff—but the author’s sharp execution offers plenty of surprises. He renders the protagonist’s uneasy position in a male-dominated, power-hungry world with care. Coy and Jane are much more complex than the average egocentric villains, which only serves to deepen Anna’s predicament. By the end, the overt action-driven sequences will feel unnecessary, since Burcat’s timely boardroom intrigue already offers plenty of thrills.

An intriguing conspiracy tale that finds fresh energy in familiar power struggles.