The Last Mandarin by Louise Penny & Melissa Fung

I became a huge fan of Louise Penny, not after reading book 1, Still Life, in her Three Pines series but while listening to book 2, A Fatal Grace, as I drove home from Quebec in 2019. Maybe it was partly due to the charm of narrator, Ralph Cosham! A pity I was driving more or less past Three Pines before I knew one could stop in Knowlton, where there are now tours of places inspired by the books and, recently, an actual café! In addition to producing a Gamache book every year, Penny has recently been collaborating with other luminaries on suspense fiction. 

The first such book was State of Terror, co-authored with Hillary Clinton; they became friends in 2017, when both needed distraction, and worked on the book together long distance during the pandemic. Published in 2021, it was a very fast-paced and readable story, featuring a Secretary of State dealing with a terrorist situation. The characters were varied but mostly likable – except for the president!

Penny’s current collaboration is The Last Mandarin, written with award-winning journalist Melissa Fung. Fung is Canadian but born in Hong Kong (where much of the book takes place), and has covered domestic and international affairs. The main characters are a charismatic Chinese-American activist, Madame Vivien Li, with many secrets in her past, and her overshadowed daughter, Alice, a food blogger. The story begins when Alice receives a text from a former classmate at Columbia, asking her to meet in DC. Alice always nourished a secret crush so mentally turns the message into the beginning of a romance. 

But while Alice is lunching with her difficult mother, a civil defense alarm goes off, and everyone’s cell phones go crazy with sirens and notifications that are going off simultaneously throughout the world. Although it doesn’t last long, soon Madame Li and Alice have been summoned to the White House. Although the president and his staff do not completely trust Madame Li, who escaped China after Tiananmen Square, and maintains many sources, they want her to opine whether China was behind the ominous alerts. Even more surprisingly, the Director of National Defense tells Alice her friend is dead: the Hong Kong police say it was an accident but the Americans believe it was murder. They hope Alice has insight because she is the last person Liam communicated with but she is just bewildered that the White House staff have intercepted her emails and why Liam, also a food blogger, would be targeted:

“Is Liam’s death somehow connected to what happened this morning?”

President Pardington turned to Vivien. “Her mother’s daughter. Straight to the point.” Then he turned to Alice. “We think so.”

“Why? How?”

“We’ll answer that,” said the President, “but first you need some context. This goes no further.”

The Americans assume the Chinese are behind the alarms and have a major terrorist plot in mind but Madame Li suggests it could be another organization, seeking to challenge the Chinese government. Naturally, two civilians, Vivien and Alice start digging and eventually wind up in China, investigating a cyberattack and more conspiracies/traitors than you can imagine. The plot was sometimes hard to follow (not to mention both convincing *and* improbable at the same time, if that makes sense) and there were some scary depictions of out of control elevators, but the overall effect was fast paced and very suspenseful. I think my major concern was that I didn’t like any of the characters so I wasn’t vested in their success (well, I didn’t want the free world to be destroyed, obviously). One of Penny’s many strengths is how she has developed her Three Pines characters so the switch to a political thriller, which often has to sacrifice character development for action, probably disappointed some readers. Definitely worth reading if you like political thrillers.

Title: The Last Mandarin
Authors: Louise Penny and Melissa Fung
Publication: St. Martin’s/Minotaur, hardcover, 2026
Genre: Suspense
Source: Library

Reading The Last Mandarin contributed to this challenge:

• Cloak and Dagger 2026