In May, Minotaur Books (North America) and Hodder & Stoughton (UK) are due to publish a new collaboration between Louise Penny (author of the internationally best-selling Inspector Gamache series) and award-winning journalist Mellissa Fung: The Last Mandarin. I’ve only read one of Penny’s novels — State of Terror, co-authored with Hilly Clinton — and I’m really interested in reading The Last Mandarin (as well as starting the Gamache series, hopefully soon). Pitched as a thriller “about the precarious balance of power across the world, and within a family. And what happens when both break down.” Here’s the synopsis:
Global politics become personal for two unlikely heroines. Alice Li, a first-generation Chinese-American, is an erstwhile food blogger who has lived in the shadow of her mother, Vivien Li. A Chinese dissident who escaped China after Tiananmen Square, Vivien is now a globally recognized human rights activist and passionate advocate for a free and democratic China.
When security and fire alarms go off simultaneously all around the world, setting off a panic, the signal is traced back to China. As world leaders scramble to respond, Vivien and Alice are called to the White House in hopes Madame Li can decode the Chinese intentions.
While it makes some sense that the President would turn to Vivien, since she regularly advises world leaders on the actions of today’s Chinese government, what isn’t clear is why they’d want to talk to Alice.
After looking at the evidence, Vivien says that the only thing worse than the Chinese government being behind it, is if they are not. It would mean, she explains, that some clandestine element within China is calling the shots. That the President of China has lost control. And an unstable China cannot be good for anyone.
Or perhaps that’s exactly what the shrewd old politician wants everyone to think.
Caught up in the chaos, Vivien and Alice are uniquely placed to stop the next, cataclysmic attack. But there are forces deep within both the American and Chinese governments intent on stopping mother and daughter. The estranged pair, who excels at misunderstanding each other, must figure out how to work together.
The increasingly frantic search for answers takes the women from the Oval Office to an office building in Akron, Ohio, from the noodle shops of Hong Kong to the necropolis of the first emperor. Along the way they must decode an old legend, and an old language invented by women, for women.
Louise Penny & Melissa Fung’s The Last Mandarin is due to be published by Minotaur Books in North America and Hodder & Stoughton in the UK, on May 12th.
Also on CR: Review of State of Terror
Follow the Author (Penny): Website, Goodreads, Instagram
Follow the Author (Fung): Website, Goodreads
Great news: Icarus 17, the fourth novel in Charles Cumming‘s Box 88 series, is due out this summer! Also, unlike many of the author’s other novels, it’ll be getting a simultaneous release in the UK and North America.
A threat to the lives of his wife and daughter in London forces elite intelligence agent Lachlan Kite to move his family to safety. Meanwhile Kite’s former girlfriend, Martha Raine, comes to him with a plea for help. Her twenty-year-old son, Max, has vanished without trace in Greece. Can Kite help to find him?
Next year, Lucas Davenport returns in Revenge Prey, the 36th novel in John Sandford‘s Prey series, which has long been one of my favourite series — I’ve been reading and thoroughly enjoying Sandford’s novels since 2004, and recently started re-reading some of his earlier novels (for example, the 
The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne was the first novel by Ron Currie that I read, and it was an excellent introduction to his work: it was a gripping mystery overlying sharp and empathetic social commentary, populated by engaging and three-dimensional characters. I was therefore pleasantly surprised to learn that the author is returning to the setting, Little Canada, in his next novel: We Will See You Bleed, due out next summer. Definitely one of my now-most-anticipated novels of 2026. Here’s the synopsis:
A high-flying financier learns he’s working for crooks. Everything goes wrong. Eventually.
Next month, 
In February, 
Early next year, 
Travis Devine gets an unusual babysitting assignment, which (of course) ends up being far more dangerous than expected…
I’ve been a big fan of Kyle Mills‘s novels since I stumbled across his Mark Beamon series in, I think, 2002 (I’ve decided to re-read these over the summer, too). At the time, I lived in the UK and his books were strangely difficult to find in stores — I still preferred buying from stores, rather than online, and because I was splitting my time between Cambridge and Durham, I had so very many bookshops to choose from, all within a 10-30 minute walks. I think the events of 9/11 briefly increased British readers’ interest in US political thrillers and, as a result, Mills’s and some others’ books became a little more widely available (e.g., Vince Flynn, Brad Thor). The Beamon novels were gripping, so whenever I popped over the Atlantic to the US, I’d pick up any new novel(s) he’d written.
Civilian Reader 