The Burning Time

This is the fourth book to feature William Carver, a London-based journalist of the traditional type who is happier wearing out shoe leather than scanning the internet in search of a story. He was in Egypt during the Arab Spring, and in Hong Kong at the time of the protests, and in both uncovered some disturbing trends in government and corporate use of electronic means to control dissent.

In his latest outing, Carver is back in UK, where he gets a hint from a senior civil servant about the unusually close access to the Prime Minister allowed to Australian environmentalist Clive Winner. Winner gains media attention for his wild ideas, and has several experimental projects running under the umbrella of a professionally slick public relations machine, although we hear that his organisation is running short of funds and is desperate to boost income.

Carver’s investigations, and some glimpses of Winner, are interrupted by scenes featuring a very frightening character, Collins. Collins visits various environmental projects in widely dispersed foreign locations, murdering key personnel in ways which point to natural causes. Just what connection Collins has to Winner remains unclear until the final pages.

One of these suspicious deaths is of Alma, a young female pilot in Portugal. Although her death is unexplained, her mother and her boyfriend are persistent, and gradually accumulate evidence that the death was no accident. Collins is still around, however, determined to prevent any word of the real facts reaching the international press, and seems to have the resources to ensure he gets his way.

Carver’s efforts to get to the bottom of the Winner story are aided by his recruitment of a junior journalist, Naz, who has been spotted at the BBC as having great potential. Carver thinks Naz should complete her National Certificate and take up proper journalism like Carver, while Naomi, the Today programme editor, thinks Naz can step straight into editing. We get details of Naz’s day-to-day activities while Carver and Naomi do battle for Naz’s services; this all feels like a realistic picture of contemporary newsgathering.

As with previous books in the series, Carver and his friends are up against well-funded adversaries who remain hidden even when the nefarious activities of their minions are exposed to view. As the book draws to a close, events take on a strangely familiar twist, bringing to mind the way the Conservative Party are currently watering down climate change objectives. Carver has either found a happy coincidence in his choice of subject, or he actually knows what is really going on, and I wouldn’t be in the least surprised if it’s the latter.