Guest Post, Excerpt, & #Giveaway: Temperature Rising by Joel Burcat
- Archaeolibrarian
- 9 hours ago
- 11 min read
Book Details:
Genre: Political Suspense Thriller
Published by: Milford House Press
Publication Date: June 16, 2026
Number of Pages: 289
ISBN: 979-8888193587
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A deadly secret. A dangerous game. How far will she go to expose the truth?
Anna Freeman never expected a routine errand to change everything. But when the ambitious law student and environmental activist retrieves a harmless videotape on energy policy, she unknowingly steps into the heart of a ruthless conspiracy. Powerful lobbyists, corrupt politicians, and billion-dollar interests will do whatever it takes to keep their secrets buried—and now, Anna is in their crosshairs.
Before she realizes it, she’s pulled deep into the very system she once despised, embraced and seduced by those orchestrating the cover-up. They think she’s one of them. But Anna has other plans. Working undercover for The New York Times, she’s determined to expose the truth—no matter the cost. The only problem—she falls in love with the industry’s most trusted lobbyist.
With every step she takes, the danger intensifies. Lies mount. The deeper she infiltrates, the harder it becomes to save herself and her friends from the ultimate outcome. When the threats turn personal, Anna faces an impossible choice: Will she risk everything—her career, her relationships, her friendships, even her life—to bring the truth to light? Or will she be silenced before she has the chance?
Temperature Rising is an electrifying political thriller packed with pulse-pounding suspense, forbidden romance, and high-stakes deception. As Anna races against time, one thing becomes clear—some secrets are worth killing for.
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"A timely and poignant thriller of political machinations, threats and lies. I enjoyed Temperature Rising, it heats up quickly and burns hot."
-Robert Dugoni, New York Times bestselling author of the Tracy Crosswhite series
Chapter 40
A familiar sound awoke Anna.
Click-click-click.
The sound floated through her head. It stopped. Then it began again.
Click-click-click.
Anna sat up with a start.
Silence.
She went to the door and held her breath.
Nothing. Just the humming and buzzing from the electrical systems. A clock ticking down the hall.
Slowly, she tiptoed to Connor’s office. She stood behind a stack of file cabinets and looked. Dim light leaked under the door. Anna froze.
Anna wanted to run away, but she slowly walked closer.
It was dark. No steel balls clicking. The only light at this end of the floor was from the streetlights.
She calmed herself as she realized that the streetlights cast a glow into the window near Donna Russell’s desk. She hoped that was the light she saw.
“Mr. Connor?” Anna whispered.
Silence.
She lightly tapped on his door.
“Mr. Connor?” she said more loudly.
Quiet.
Slowly, Anna tried the knob.
It was locked, but not pulled shut all the way.
She was sure it had been locked tightly when she tried it before.
She pushed the door open. The room was dark, illuminated only by the streetlight from outside. The desk was empty except for Newton’s cradle.
It swayed back and forth, the way it did as it was coming to rest. Conservation of momentum. Conservation of energy.
Anna gasped. Why was it moving?
“Mr. Connor?” she said more loudly. She looked around the office.
No reply. She quickly looked behind Connor’s big leather chair. Nothing.
“Mr. Heftig?”
Silence.
Slowly, Anna turned and looked behind the door. She felt a creeping sensation on her back. The fine hair on her neck stood up straight.
Nothing.
Slowly, she continued turning to survey the entire office. Then she jumped. The air conditioner clicked on and a woosh came through the vent. A mountain range of goosebumps rose on her bare arms.
She looked at the desk. The Newton’s cradle was swaying in the breeze. She held her hand over the toy. The AC blew directly onto it. Just enough to make the balls click together quietly. They swayed in the breeze from the vent. Together. All five balls. Had this always been the case? Was the office so noisy during the day that she hadn’t noticed the quiet sound?
Anna took a deep breath, backed out of the office, and pulled the door until it clicked shut.
As she returned to her office, she glanced at the clock. It was 4:15. She was fifteen minutes late to meet Dread.
“Oh crap.”
Anna shot down the hallway to the freight elevator. It seemed to take forever to come to her floor. As the door closed she remembered something and stuck her hand into the narrow opening, pushing the rubberized safety bar and making the door open. She ran to room 2-Y and used her key to get back inside. She grabbed the beat up briefcase from the corner, the one with SOF stamped on the side, and ran back to the elevator.
The elevator slowly descended to the basement. No matter how many times she pressed the button, it went at the same annoying speed. She worked her way through the maintenance room and placed the cardboard into position at the door. She put the briefcase in the corner on the loading dock. Then she hustled to L Street and looked up and down. No Dread. No people. Not even a taxi.
The air was chilly and Anna regretted forgetting to put on her sweater, which was draped on her chair in her office. She walked up and down the street and didn’t see any sign of Dread anywhere. She looked at her watch; it was 4:20.
“Damn. Damn. Damn.”
Finally, a pair of headlights approached on L Street. The car was moving slowly. A big, dark green SUV, a Suburban with an extended back, pulled up and stopped. The driver wore a flannel shirt and had a beard. Anna thought she recognized him from the bar in New Jersey. He smiled pleasantly at her.
Anna smiled at the man.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Anna. Sorry, I was late.”
“Hey there, Anna. Call me Jack. Don’t matter to me, baby.”
“Did it take you a while to get here?”
“Hours. Been looking for you for a while.”
“Sorry. I fell asleep. Are you ready to do this?” Anna said.
“Never readier,” the man replied, smiling. He patted the passenger seat.
“You can pull into the alley over there.” Anna pointed. She started to open the door.
“Sure, if you say so.” The man craned his neck to see the alley. “Is that where it’s at?”
“Yes. That’s where it’s at. Where’s Dread?” Anna asked, looking around.
The man made a face. “I’m past dread, baby, unless you’re with the cops. What do you charge? I’m just looking for some quick head. I can give you twenty bucks. We can do it in the back of my Suburban or right here on the front seat. Whatever works for you.”
Anna recoiled from the man. “Oh God,” she said. She hopped out and retreated to the nearest doorway. The man watched her through the open window.
“Hey, come on, baby,” he called. “We can do it quick. I promise. I’ll give you twenty-five bucks.”
Finally, he slowly moved on when another vehicle pulled up behind him and flashed its lights. A pickup truck.
Anna waited in the darkened doorway until the window of the pickup opened. It was Dread.
“Hey, Anna, hon, we thought maybe you gave us the wrong info when we talked. We were here at ten of. This is the third time we’ve circled around the block.”
Anna opened the door and got inside. Her hands were shaking.
“Calm down, hon. We got this. You look sick. Here, this will help.” Dread handed her a brown paper bag.
Anna wondered what variety of alcohol Dread had in the bag. She hoped it was vodka.
“You want a cookie?” Dread asked. “They’re chocolate chip. I baked them myself.”
“You bake cookies?” Anna broke into a smile.
“You got a problem wit’ that? Camden County’s junior baking champ in twelfth grade. I’ve got the blue ribbon at home to prove it.”
Anna finally laughed and opened the bag, releasing the smell of brown sugar, vanilla, and chocolate. The cookies were huge and smelled glorious. She took a piece of cookie from the bag. In fact, it was scrumptious. “Oh God Dread, these are yummy!”
Dread smiled her smile and Anna directed her to the alley and told her to back in. Another pickup truck backed in behind them.
“That’s Max,” Dread said, keeping her hands on the wheel and pointing with one finger. “One of my boys with the Devils. I borrowed this truck from another guy, and Max agreed to come down with me. We convoyed all the way here. Did I see you talking with someone in an SUV?”
Anna nodded. “Yes. I thought it was one of your guys. It wasn’t. He thought I was a hooker.”
Dread was twisted around her seat as she backed into the alley, and she put her foot on the brake and looked at Anna. “I can see that. A little skinny, maybe, to earn a good living. Not nearly enough meat up top. But most guys aren’t picky at 4 a.m. What did he offer you?”
“Twenty bucks for a B.J.”
“Twenty? At this time of night, poor horny dude was probably desperate. You should have held out for forty.” Dread cackled, a long drawn-out laugh. After a moment, Anna laughed too.
They slowly backed into the alley, all the way to the dumpster. Anna hopped out first. As soon as her sneakers touched the ground, something didn’t seem right. She immediately went to the place where the documents had been hidden.
They were gone.
What inspired me to write Temperature Rising?
Often I get asked what inspired me to write a particular novel or story. Sometimes it’s just a headline I have read. Occasionally it’s an anecdote out of my life or a friend’s life. Almost always there is some spark of inspiration. Generally, the story comes from an amalgamation of events. I know this is the same for many authors.
In my case, I write environmental fiction to highlight a concern that I believe requires more attention. I do my level best to present both sides of any issue. Sadly, we are witnessing the devastating impact of ignoring climate change and Temperature Rising is an effort to bring attention to it.
But, how did I come up with the story? Temperature Rising is about a young woman, Anna Freeman, a first year law student at Rutgers Law School who goes into the wrong place at the wrong time. Unintentionally, she attends a secret meeting of lobbyists in Washington DC and hears information that alarms her. Yet, she is invited back. Later, her friends and a reporter convince her to spy on the organization. She returns week after week infiltrating and spying on the lobbyists. Ultimately, she is confronted with the moral dilemma: what is she willing to sacrifice to expose the truth?
The beginning of Temperature Rising was inspired by a real event from my life— with a twist. Everything that follows the introduction is entirely made up. Here is what happened to inspire this novel.
In the spring of 1980, I got my first haircut in months, put on a suit, and traveled from Vermont Law School to Washington, D.C. for a job interview at the U.S. EPA. Since I was going to be in D.C. anyway, I was asked by the Environmental Law Society to go to the offices of a large industry advocacy organization representing logging and lumbering interests to pick up a videotape about National Forests. The videotape was for a program the society was putting on later in the spring.
On my way to the job interview, I stopped by the organization’s offices in D.C. and told the receptionist I was there “for the videotape.” She directed me to a room. Keep in mind, this was 1980, so the level of security was much less than what exists today. The room was darkened, and a film about logging in America’s National Forests was already playing. I figured this must be a preview of the video, so I took a seat in the back row. In the darkness, I could see maybe twenty people in the room, all men, all white, mostly young (twenties and thirties), and all wearing suits.
When the videotape was over, an older man got up and started talking about a lobbying strategy to overturn sections of the National Wilderness Act, a 1964 law that prohibits logging and development in designated wilderness sections of Federal lands. The NWA protects those few patches of wilderness that are particularly remote or have not been forested in the course of our country’s 250-year history. The videotape was a production draft for a lobbying project on which the organization was working. It quickly became apparent that these people were lobbyists for various companies and organizations who were working together to overturn the NWA. I was shocked and fascinated and definitely did not belong there. Instead of leaving, I stayed and listened.
Every now and then, someone would look at me, and I’d throw them a friendly smile and nod at them. At twenty-five, I was one of the younger ones in the room, but not the youngest. I was dressed well enough to attend a job interview in 1980 (haircut, blue suit, necktie, briefcase), and I looked like one of the young lobbyists. No one asked me to identify myself or to see identification. No one challenged me. I sat through the meeting and listened as they discussed lobbying strategy. When the meeting was over, I left quickly, as I did not really want to have to explain myself. I proceeded to my interview at EPA.
When I returned to Vermont Law School, I told the story to some of my buddies in the Environmental Law Society, but my adventure never went further than that. I was not as brave as Anna Freeman, so I did not make any effort to return and did not reach out to any newspapers. I tucked away this brief, but unforgettable, adventure deep in my memory banks. I began writing Temperature Rising a little over forty years later, when I saw a headline in The New York Times about the CIA employing “climate spies,” essentially analysts who look at and analyze environmental issues (see https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/05/science/linda-zall-cia.html). There was no relationship between the news report and my experience in 1980, but it brought to mind my clandestine adventure in D.C. It moved me to write this work of fiction.
As Sam Ervin, the great U.S. Senator from North Carolina, said during the Watergate hearings, “I am guilty of no crime, for which the statute of limitations has not passed.”
I never did get the video.
Or the job.
Joel Burcat is an award-winning novelist and retired environmental lawyer whose thrillers blend high-stakes suspense with real-world issues. He is the author of Drink to Every Beast, Amid Rage, Strange Fire, Reap the Wind, and Temperature Rising, as well as the historical novel Whiz Kid, co-written with his late father, David S. Burcat. His books have earned multiple honors, including Readers’ Favorite Gold and Silver Medals, a Kindle Book Reviews Semi-Finalist award, and recognition from PennWriters and the Next Generation Indie Book Awards (Finalist). Drawing on more than forty years of environmental law practice, Burcat now writes full-time from central Pennsylvania.
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Wow, well that was interesting! It cool how you turned a real life incixcent into this story The book sounds great!