cinaed

In our opening chapters, we meet Mrs. Pollifax, an older woman who has been widowed for eight years, whose children are grown and have children of their own and live far away, and whose life consists of helping one charity after another. It’s a good life, though a thoroughly unsatisfying one. 

When Mrs. Pollifax begins contemplating how easy it would be to step off her roof while watering her geraniums, she visits a doctor, who pronounces her in the best of health and asks, “Isn’t there something you’ve always wanted to do?” 

Mrs. Pollifax looked at him. “When I was growing up—oh for years—I planned to become a spy,” she admitted.

The next day, Mrs. Pollifax packs her things and heads to Washington, D.C., where she politely and cheerfully harasses her congressman into writing her a reference letter, and then to Langley, Virginia, where she presents herself at the recently opened C.I.A. building and asks if they have need of a spy. 

It just so happens that they do, a courier job that needs an unknown face to pick up a package. It’s a simple enough job— wander around Mexico City pretending to be a grandmotherly tourist for two weeks, and then on a certain day go into a certain bookshop and ask for a certain book. A simple job that gets complicated, and Mrs. Pollifax finds herself kidnapped and spirited away to places unknown. 

But never fear! Mrs. Pollifax is not going to take being kidnapped and threatened with death lying down! No, sir! You can just ask the long-suffering actual spy who has been captured with her, who finds himself asking the following questions:

"Ma’am, are you befriending our jailers?"

"…Ma’am, are you giving one of our jailers a back-rub?"

"…Ma’am, are you trying to convince our jailers that democracy is awesome? Okay, as an agent of the United States I should approve of that, but do you have to do that while taking nice long walks with the jailers?"

"…..Ma’am, did the jailers just invite you to a party? With singing? And alcohol? Ma’am?" 

It is a great book, with caveats for this being very much a pro-democracy stance and violence and murder and some torture because, well, spy stuff. But I read it in one sitting and am definitely looking forward to the rest of the series even if my library doesn’t seem to have the second book….