The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax

That most unlikely of CIA agents - the charming, flowered-hat-wearing grandmother Mrs. Emily Pollifax - returns in this, her third international adventure. Dispatched to Bulgaria with passports hidden in her hat, her assignment was a simple one: make contact with a member of the underground political movement there and give him the passports, to enable dissidents to flee the country. But as was so often the case with Mrs. Pollifax, things proved to be more complicated. First, there was the question of her coat, which hid another bit of smuggled contraband, of which she herself was unaware. Then there was the innocent young American, arrested as a spy, imprisoned, and being used as an pawn in an international conspiracy. Mrs. Pollifax show more was, as Bishop noted back in Washington, a "meddler," and soon she was involved in another extraordinary adventure...

Every bit as delightful as its predecessors, The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax is amusing, entertaining and ultimately heartwarming. Its eponymous heroine is such an unlikely agent, not simply because of her age, but because of her goodhearted and trusting nature. It isn't that she's a fool - if anything, she is very wise, and is a good judge of character - but she wants to see the best in people, and this allows her to find allies in unlikely places, allies that a more cynical person would never have managed to find. As always, I found the setting here quite fascinating - I find that many of the countries and regions I want to visit, to this day, have features in this series - and the cast of secondary characters appealing. I loved the hilarious exchanges between Radev and Mrs. Pollifax, and the more romantic ones between Mrs. Pollifax and Tsanko. All in all, a wonderful adventure, every bit as entertaining as when I read it years ago! Highly recommended to anyone who has read and enjoyed the first two Mrs. Pollifax books. show less

Okay, this is not five stars like my favorite books of ALL TIME are 5 stars. But if you are looking for FAST paced adventure, a quirky, improbable, yet wonderfully entertaining read, then, yes. Five stars.

I am in love with Mrs. Pollifax. I am starting to see a longer story arc unfolding in each book of the series and that is almost as tantalizing as each novel's own roller coaster plot.

And sorry, but dinner had to wait till 9pm, as I rushed through the ending. I could not have put down the last 30 or so pages if the house had been on fire (SO glad it was not!).

I have taken to following her adventures via GoogleMaps - VERY fun, highly recommended.

Thank you Ms. Gilman, now traveling the Summerlands, for this unlikely heroine, your show more meticulously researched details, and the anti-Bond some of us might have longed for. show less

Mrs Pollifax has a beautiful new hat. Perfect for hiding 8 forged passports. So it seems simple enough for her to deliver them to the Bulgarian underground, at the CIA's request. But when the prize-winning geranium grower from New Brunswick, New Jersey is involved, nothing stays simple for very long. Mrs Pollifax is trying to arrange a nice young man's escape from an escape proof Bulgarian prison, with the aid of fireworks, a rope, a bow and arrow, stocking masks, and a gaggle of geese.

When the CIA needs to get eight forged passports into Bulgaria, it seems like a perfect assignment for Mrs. Pollifax, an amateur who has occasionally been useful to them. All Mrs. Pollifax needs to do is meet a contact and deliver the passports. Nothing ends up being that simple when Mrs. Pollifax is involved. On her way to Bulgaria, she meets a group of young people traveling on the same flight. When one of them ends up in trouble, Mrs. Pollifax may be the only person who can save him.

This book was originally published in 1971, and it is firmly anchored in the Cold War. Yugoslavia hasn't yet disintegrated, Brezhnev is the Soviet leader, and the young Americans look like hippies and are concerned about their draft status. In spite of show more all the changes in world politics since the book was written, the only detail that made it feel dated is the expressed novelty of someone in the CIA having a phone in his car.

I love the combination of adventure and travel in the Mrs. Pollifax books. Mrs. Pollifax manages to see quite a bit of Bulgaria during her stay, and the descriptions of historic sites and scenery have me longing to see it in person. show less

Mrs. Pollifax is heading behind the Iron Curtain—specifically to Bulgaria, where she’ll meet up with members of the underground and deliver fake passports that will help them get out of the country. It should be a simple courier job, but soon Mrs. P becomes embroiled in a delicate matter that involves the secret police. Here’s hoping she’ll get out of this one alive.

This is one of the early books in the series, so the concept is still fresh. It’s one of the few that escaped my attention when I was reading the series originally (about 20 years ago), so I was reading it for the first time here. I found it surprisingly tense and action-packed. I can’t speak to how accurately Bulgaria of the early 1970s is portrayed here, show more although I did find some of the Bulgarian accents drifted into what I call “Boris-and-Natasha” territory—a cod Eastern European accent that sounds like “Moose and skvirrel”.

I enjoyed reading this and will probably keep it, but I don’t know if I’ll re-read it as much as I do some of the other books in the series. show less

I love Mrs. Pollifax. These are completely ridiculous, unbelievable, escapist stories … and I can't help but be sucked in. This time, Mrs. Pollifax leads an Underground of political dissidents in Bulgaria in an impossible prison break involving geese. I love it.

In book three of the series, the CIA’s least likely courier is sent on a mission to Bulgaria. She’s to deliver some forgeed passports to a group of underground operatives. The CIA has given her a wonderful custom-made hat, in which she can hide the documents. All she has to do to shake her Balkantourist “keeper” and order a particular garment at a local tailor shop. But her CIA supervisor, Carstairs, should know better. Emily Pollifax has a talent for getting involved and this trip will be no different. Before anyone knows what’s happening she is helping a handful of older men break into an impregnable prison – with the help of one teenage gymnast, one pistol, some fireworks and a gaggle of geese.

I love this series. Mrs show more Pollifax is charming, smart, resourceful and calm in a crisis. If the situations she finds herself in stretch credulity, who cares? The books are fun to read and pure entertainment. show less