The Marionette

Advance praise for The Marionette:

“The Marionette is a funny, fast-paced romp of a thriller. Terry Fallis has given us an unforgettable new action hero in James Norval—a bestselling thriller writer and aspiring spy who finally gets his chance to go undercover. I loved every page. More Norval, please!”
—Susan Juby, bestselling author of Contemplation of a Crime

“Seldom has a Canadian spy mission to the West African country of Mali been this much fun. Just like what Terry Fallis did with Canadian politics in his first novel, The Best Laid Plans, he does the impossible once again, making something inherently unfunny into an amazingly delightful adventure. Someday I want to grow up and write like Terry Fallis.”
—Drew Hayden Taylor, author of Cold

“Canada’s favourite humourist returns with a high-stakes comic thriller that managed to make me both laugh out loud and gasp in suspense. Bright, savvy, and dangerously funny, The Marionette delivers from start to finish. Terry Fallis is a legend.”
—Ali Bryan, author of Coq, and two-time finalist for the Leacock Medal

“In a world shrouded in darkness and shadow, Fallis remains a shining light of decency and big-hearted humour. In his latest novel The Marionette, a fast-paced, feel-good thriller, he combines laughter and suspense to weave a masterful tale of international intrigue and Canadian ingenuity.”
—Rod Carley, award-winning author of RUFF

“Terry Fallis’ The Marionette is a welcome reminder that fiction can be both artful and engaging. It’s a comic thriller—a thromedy?—that teems with Fallis’ trademark wit: a narrator, for instance, who says he’s so hungry he could eat a sandwich made of a horse splayed out between two mattresses. But the thrills of the thriller are there as well in this tale of a Canadian writer, James Norval, who dives headlong into the middle of a coup in the West African country of Mali. Norval’s voice is the most endearingly irksome one I’ve heard in quite some time. Fallis pulls off the feat of blending genres with elan, aplomb, and pure pizazz!”
—Wayne Johnston, author of Jennie’s Boy, winner of the 2023 Leacock Medal for Humour

“Narrative surprises are a constant and the humour bubbles along as a Canadian thriller writer is conscripted into palace intrigue in a foreign land, then accepts a rescue mission that sends him on a daring high-wire escape to freedom in Terry Fallis’ rousing novel, The Marionette. A great yarn.”
—Trevor Ferguson, aka John Farrow, author of City of Ice