Monday, August 31, 2020

The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gillman

This is the second in the series about Mrs. Pollifax.  It has been about a year since Mrs. Pollifax entered the world of US intelligence.  She has settled back into a routine of volunteering at the hospital and pouring tea at the women's auxiliary. Then she gets a call from Mr. Carstairs. He wonders if she can leave in a half an hour to do a courier job in the middle east.  Mrs. Pollifax drops everything and packs her bag.  This time she needs to rendezvous with a defecting Russian spy and get her out of Turkey.  The trouble is, that there are lots of different agencies from around the world looking for this ex-spy and the last agent the CIA sent ended up dead.  Can Mrs. Pollifax's super "sweet old lady" power save  her again?

After reading a couple of kid's books, I felt I needed a treat.  This one was very much like the other two Mrs. Pollifax books I read, and I enjoyed it just as much.  I am starting to see some patterns.  There seems to always be a charming young man who comes to respect and care about her, a dashing older man who jumps in to save the day, and a foreigner who turns out to be a secret ally.  Even though they are formulaic, Gillman's characterization are so delightful that I will probably keep reading them as treat books for a while. (309 p. 1970)

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