Kill Well (The Steep Climes Quartet, #1) / The Steep Climes Quartet (ePub)

Kill Well (The Steep Climes Quartet: Book One)

In one quick glimpse, her world collapses.

Cynthia Wainwright was on her way to yet another fossil fuel divestment pitch, but now she is on the run. Her boss, a V.P. at Carbon's End, is dead and someone is trying to make it look like she pulled the trigger.

Chicago's record-breaking heatwave has a death count, riots, and rolling brownouts, and Jimmy Caine, recent graduate and even more recently laid off, is abandoning the city, heading home to the cool green hills of the Berkshires. On the long North Shore Limited train ride, a pretty woman named Cyn is in distress and he needs to help.

Davin Caine, post-divorce, has a big house and even bigger bills, and he is happy that his son is on his way home to Housatonic, but now with this mysterious young woman in tow. An even bigger problem is the contract killer who may be on the way to the house, working for powers operating in the shadows and desperate to tie up loose ends.

Kill Well is the first book in The Steep Climes Quartet, a provocative series that Kill Well surveys the climate changes coming toward us today and in the years and decades ahead, focusing on the experience of these troubled times and the thoughts and feelings and choices of the series' main characters caught up in the climate crisis. Kill Well blends thriller genre with the literary style of deep character development to build page-turners that help us imagine what we might be thinking now and in the years ahead about climate change and choices we each must face.

If you love well-researched fiction and find entertaining character-rich books your favorite way to better understand the complexities, challenges, and compromises that lie ahead for us all, this page-turner is for you.

Early response for Kill Well:

David Guenette manages to show that the climate crisis is already affecting our energy and food bills and intensifying the drama of local politics. Kill Well is a fun ride but uncomfortable, too, as we get another way to think about where we're heading all too quickly.
--Karen Christensen, CEO and Publisher, Berkshire Publishing Company and author of Eco Living, The Green Home, Home Ecology (book), and Home Ecology (Substack newsletter)

No drowned worlds or climate-ravaged zombies, but a solid story with compelling characters that leaves you thinking that you haven't been thinking nearly enough about climate change. I can't wait until the next book in this series hits.
--Larry D. Gussin, Gussin Climate Action Fund at The Sierra Club Foundation

Climate change is not something that is happening independent of people's lives, but rather is already part of each of our lives. This book helps you see that, and, like a magic trick, gives a poignant, entertaining, and funny read along the way.
--Winslow Eliot, author of ten novels, including Bright Face of Danger, Heaven Falls, The Happiness Cure, and A Perfect Gem, and several nonfiction books, including WriteSpa: An Oasis for Writers and the mutli-award winning What Would You Do If There Was Nothing You Had To Do? Practices to Create Your Life The Way You Want It To Be