Long before Jessica Fletcher, Sister Mary Helen, or Agatha Raisin, there was Mrs. Emily Pollifax of suburban New Jersey, widowed grandmother, hospital volunteer, garden club member, and occasional CIA agent.
In 14 books published between 1966 and 2000, MWA Grand Master Dorothy Gilman (1923-2012) told the reading public about Mrs. Pollifax’s career during the Cold War through an increasingly improbable series of adventures that were great fun but also underlined the fact that people don’t lose their intelligence and resourcefulness after their 60th birthday, a novel idea for the time.
In Mrs. Pollifax’s debut, The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax (Doubleday, 1966) her doctor thinks she’s depressed (he’s right) and encourages her to do something she always wanted to do but never had the time. Mrs. Pollifax thought about it awhile and recalled her youthful desire to become a spy so she obtains an introduction through her congressional representative to the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virgina, where she tells a startled public affairs specialist that she’s there to apply for a position as a secret agent. He leaves the room for a moment, possibly to obtain assistance with the well-meaning lunatic, thus allowing Mr. William Carstairs to enter, mistakenly thinking she was a fully vetted potential courier waiting to interview with him for assignment to Mexico.
Mrs. Pollifax is delighted for the opportunity, and Carstairs is desperate enough even after the error is clarified to allow her to go to Mexico to retrieve a packet of information a long-term operative in South America had been collecting over the past several months. Of course nothing goes as planned once Mrs. Pollifax encounters the opposition. However, her common sense and her Ingenuity confound a range of thugs and scoundrels, who have never before dealt with a suburban grandmother who brooks no nonsense. The result is a laugh-out-loud funny story with plenty of adventure and a strong insistence that senior citizens still have a place on the world stage.
While the first edition is long out of print, with good used copies selling for nearly $200, paperback reprints are plentiful and reasonably priced. There’s no reason not to add this excellent title to any TBR list.
I’ve read the series twice over the years and plan to re-read again. Mrs. P. is so resourceful and generally unflappable — I wish I were more like her. And the way she gets into this new life of hers is hilarious.
Also, the series offers a glimpse into places I’d never be able to visit. Yes, much of the information may be dated, but I think the flavor of those locales still holds.