The Marionette

Terry Fallis has never failed me.  His books have been engaging and hard to put down.  His humor brings on chuckles.

In "The Marionette" the hero, Norval James is a very successful spy novelist who visited Tajikstan for research and got into a jam, evolving to some uncomfortable imprisonment, but was rescued by some Canadian embassy staff.  From there he is introduced to a government employee, Angus McLintock (from a previous novel, "Operation Angus) who tells him about a unique situation requiring his unusual qualifications.  It seems a foreign leaders who is great fan of Norval's books is in some sort of trouble and is in charge with some 15 Canadians kept against their will at a Mali mining site.

Looking at a video the leader of Mali had arranged all of Norval's books out of chronological order to send a message that he needs help.  It turns out his country has nationalized a gold mine and forced some of the Canadian staff to work under duress.  CSIS has been tasked to rescue them and stumbled upon the leader's obsession with Norval's books..

Norval had had great ambitions to join CSIS some 20 years previous to become in effect a spy, but despite a promising start in the testing he was dropped without an explanation.  Instead he turned to writing fictional spy books.  Now he is brought together with the actual CSIS whose members seem skeptical and even when persuaded to work with him strongly demand that he stay in the background while professionals make the key decisions.

The leader of Mali is indeed a big fan and it does turn out that he is something of a puppet, or Marionette hoping someone will disentangle him from his mess.  It seems he is more of a hostage with his young unsuspecting daughter being used as leverage.  Norval works with Lauren Cooper who pretends to be his research assistant and for awhile they have a tricky relationship.  You know somehow they will smooth out their relationship and develop a complicated rescue plan.  Along the way there will be some laughs, but also a little suspense.  

 Terry Fallis, with a political background does a little satire.  One of his comments reminds me of another writer, Robert J. Sawyer with connections to McMaster University who spoke at the Hamilton Public Library.  Robert was a prominent science fiction writer who had some of his books turned into television scripts.  It turns out Robert did not include any explosions in his stories, but television people felt they were necessary to make the shows successful.  Robert pointed out lots of money had been spent and he okayed it.  

Terry was a graduate engineer student at McMaster while Robert had just agreed to let his literary papers be housed at McMaster.  He had received similar offers from other universities, but chose McMaster because they were treating him as a writer and not merely a science fiction writer.  See http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2012/04/memories-of-robert-j-sawyer.html

 Terry, winner of the Stephen Leacock award has also had stories turned into television shows.also finds ways to subtlety make fun of writers.  Nobody is safe.

I look forward when Terry visits the Hamilton Public Library next month.

An earlier blog covering several of Terry's books:  http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2021/10/terry-fallis-with-little-humour.html

And another blog about a more recent book:   http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2023/10/a-new-season.html