AI, geopolitics, and nostalgia inspire Fung-Penny thriller ''The Last Mandarin''

’‘For this book, we needed to be able to diverge from the facts but not go so far that it becomes ludicrous,’’ said Penny in a video interview with the Canadian Press. ’‘There were times when we disagreed on how far we could actually go,’’ added Fung.

Penny, the prolific Quebec author whose Chief Inspector Armand Gamache mysteries have sold millions of copies worldwide, previously teamed up with former U.S. secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton to write the political thriller “State of Terror,” published in 2021.

Fung spent years reporting on international conflicts, including in Afghanistan, where she was kidnapped in 2008 and held captive for 28 days before later recounting the experience in a book called ‘’Under an Afghan Sky’’.

Their new novel follows Vivien and Alice, a Chinese-American mother-daughter duo, sometimes at odds, who race across continents to stop a global catastrophe fuelled by artificial intelligence, cyberattacks and international political rivalries.

The idea took shape before the 2024 U.S. presidential election, explained Penny, when foreign interference dominated headlines.

“It was something that we both were following, and we thought that this would make good fiction,” said Fung.

As world events continued to unfold, so did the manuscript. The pair repeatedly revisited the story, reworking characters and plot lines to reflect an increasingly complicated geopolitical landscape, especially after Donald Trump’s U.S. presidential election victory.

The journalist said she and Penny deliberately resisted creating one-dimensional villains. “We were very careful not to make the Chinese the obvious bad guys,” said Fung.

The result is American and Chinese world leaders ’‘who do not like each other,’’ she said, but who ’‘need to work together to solve a crisis.’’

Despite being anchored in current realities, Penny insists the novel is not a warning tale about artificial intelligence or cyberwarfare. Instead, she said, it explores a far older force: powerful weapons ending up in the wrong hands.

Penny said that theme became important throughout the writing process, as the pair wrestled with how closely a novel based in the current time should reflect the real world.

“If we had written it as non-fiction, a cautionary tale, no one would have bought the book … because it’s like eating broccoli, shove it down people’s throats, it’s good for you,” she said. “You make it entertaining, and people come to the same conclusion but in a way that is much more approachable than if we had written it as a polemic.”

Penny and Fung agreed that fiction can communicate those truths in ways non-fiction often cannot.

For Fung, who spent years reporting from conflict zones, the novel offered something journalism rarely does: the freedom to go beyond facts.

That freedom also meant adjusting to a very different kind of storytelling. Penny laughingly recalled that Fung initially had trouble “killing off characters” after years of being faithful to the truth.

And when it came to revealing who was behind the threat in the end, Penny quoted British-American poet W.H. Auden’s observation that “evil is unspectacular and always human,” along with political philosopher Hannah Arendt’s concept of the “banality of evil.’’

‘’The Last Mandarin’’, she said, argues that the greatest threats can come from ordinary human motivations. But Penny said hope remains at the centre of the story.

“I think that in the Gamache books, as in this book, the goodness and the decency is what counts,” Penny said. “The belief that decency will win is at the backbone of ‘The Last Mandarin,’” she said.

The authors’ collaboration deepened a friendship built over years of conversations in cities including London and Hong Kong, where the pair often developed ideas over bowls of noodles. They alternated writing chapters before Penny completed a final edit so the novel would read in a single voice.

Penny also alluded to future collaborations. “I would love to work with Mellissa again because it was so much fun and she’s such a great writer,” she said.

‘’The Last Mandarin’’ came out earlier this year in English. The French translation, ’‘Les Derniers Mandarins,” comes out Aug. 5.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 5, 2026.