Book Review: Peter Hanington’s deftly plotted The Burning Time a propulsive read

The Burning Time

By Peter Hanington
Fiction/Baskerville/Paperback/419 pages/$31.54/Amazon (

amzn.to/3OwAkdK

)
4 stars

BBC radio journalist Peter Hanington returns with this fourth thriller starring old-school investigative journalist William Carver.

Where in the previous instalment he dissected big tech company Public Square and its sinister omniscience, his latest takes aim at the $7½ trillion fossil fuel industry and the lengths shadow actors will go to prevent a real tipping of the scales in humanity’s struggle for the planet.

There may be fewer bodies than fans of this genre have come to expect, but the stakes are clear and firmly grounded. The tussle is not among invincible spies who have received years of fight and arms training, but between corporations keen on using their public relations departments to spin mistakes and the consciences of these employees.

Rather than kill wantonly, lobbying is followed up only sparingly and so effectively with physical threats. A cruel, lazy-eyed hitman Collins, though, makes easy targets of climate scientists working in remoter regions of the world. It may not yet be the last word for either Carver or Collins.

Carver, who is “a little bit famous” for his work, receives a tip-off from a career civil servant worried about the close relationship between Downing Street and Australian climate businessmen Clive Winner in the lead-up to the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference.

Ostensibly a climate advocate, Winner’s research relies heavily on the mythical “silver bullet”, believing that reversing climate change is a matter of geoengineering. So his hodgepodge projects include altering animal DNA to create burp-free cows and American chestnut trees that could shrug off blight, and reflective sun-shields in space.

The project in the spotlight, though, is one that involves sprinkling diamond dust to change the nature of clouds. Alma, a hired pilot in Spain, has been shot down by an unmarked drone in the course of operations, creating a PR and funding disaster for Winner, who is trying to make sure local media inquiries do not catch the attention of international news agencies.

Those looking for Tom Cruise-style male bravado should look elsewhere, for Carver, in every way touted as a slightly rogue lone-wolf jounalist, is really a team player.

Hanington’s experience in journalism has correctly taught him that the best scoops involve the delegation of responsibilities and the use of individuals’ separate expertise. His young, female protege Naz, with whom he thankfully does not develop even an insinuation of romance, does much of the groundwork and provides the technological nous.

His commitment to old-school journalism, though, continues to do its part, as he develops contacts and ferrets information from sources. A side story, thrilling probably only to those in the industry, involves the internal politics of the BBC, which, in a digital age, is also focusing more on desk-bound “digital journalism”, while paying lip service to field work – a double responsibility which Naz, as a rookie, is frequently put in a spot to choose between.

That is not to say that Hanington’s deftly plotted conspiracy is not propulsive, managing to be economical despite running upwards of 400 pages.

He has incorporated the phone-tapping Pegasus spyware, developed by the Israeli NSO Group and which came to public attention in 2021, to up the ante. This need not be anachronistic, since the first iteration of Pegasus spyware was developed as early as 2011, in time for The Burning Time’s exploits.

The moral code of Hanington’s characters is not absolute, but pragmatic. Winner’s optimistic geoengineering projects proceed alongside his less sexy work on renewable energy, and it is no spoiler to say that half of the equation is more saleable to politicians and the fossil fuel honchos than the other.

In dwelling on these mechanics, Hanington has also given readers an entertaining lesson on climate politics. Carver’s partial scoop is just one in what has to be a long series of actions to put something on the side of the scales of the good.

If you like this, read: Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton (Granta, 2023, 432 pages, $29, Amazon, go to

amzn.to/3q05jWq

), a thriller of a tussle between eco-collective Birnam Wood and American billionaire Robert Lemoine over a piece of land in New Zealand’s South Island.