Emily Pollifax
Encyclopedia
Mrs. Emily Pollifax is the hero
ine of a series of comic spy
-mystery
novels by Dorothy Gilman
. Mrs. Pollifax is a widow
and senior citizen
who decides one day to leave her comfortable apartment in New Brunswick
, New Jersey
and join the CIA
. Through an initial misunderstanding, Mrs. Pollifax is given a simple courier
assignment by Operations Chief, Mr. Carstairs, and her ensuing adventure leads her into to a career in espionage.
The Emily Pollifax novels frequently employ comic relief and suspense. A consistent theme throughout the series is Mrs. Pollifax' tendency to take an interest in people who seem disconnected with her mission, but who either become part of the investigation and/or who prove to be of invaluable assistance to resolving the case. Recurring characters include Bishop, Carstairs' assistant; John Sebastian Farrell, an agent turned art dealer; and in later books, Cyrus Reed, a man with whom Mrs. Pollifax finds romance late in life. Most of the novels take place in existing countries and include authentic details; however, characters in the stories sometimes originate from fictional places that resemble groups of non-fiction countries. An example of this trait is evidenced by a character in A Palm for Mrs. Pollifax who is from Zabya, a fictional Middle Eastern monarchy described as one of "those Arabian oil-producing countries." In addition, as is common in the spy fiction genre, many of the stories taking place in the Cold War
era are set in Iron Curtain
countries or include rival spies from Communist
countries.
named Mrs. Pollifax—Spy
, based on the book The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, was made. It starred Rosalind Russell
in the title role, and she was also credited as contributing to the story idea under a pseudonym.
In 1999 a CBS
television movie
based on The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax was made starring Angela Lansbury
in the title role.
One of these films (Mrs. Pollifax) is currently available for streaming from Netflix.
Mrs. Pollifax is an elderly widow who has come to find life dull and is almost ready to end it all out of sheer boredom. Inspired by a newspaper profile of an actress who began her career in later life, she decides to fulfill a childhood ambition and apply for a job as a spy at the CIA. Meanwhile, Carstairs at the CIA is looking for an agent who can pass as a tourist in order to pick up some important microfilms in Mexico City
. Due to a slight confusion, he thinks Mrs. Pollifax is one of the candidates and decides that Mrs. Pollifax is ideal; Carstairs decided this assignment carries so little danger that even one who is relatively untrained may be sent. So with minimum explanation, Pollifax is ushered off to Mexico City to meet a bookstore owner/secret agent, exchange code phrases, leave with a book containing the microfilm. Of course, the courier mission does not go as planned, and Mrs. Pollifax finds herself in a prison in Iron Curtain-era
Albania
, facing harsh questioning and possible torture. But she proves to be unusually resourceful, and with her companion's assistance, manages to outwit the enemy and save the day.
For this novel, Mrs. Pollifax is called again by Mr. Carstairs, her CIA superior. This time, he asks her to go to Turkey and contact Magda Ferenci-Sabo, a known Russian spy and secret double agent who is defecting to the Free World. Emily Pollifax is to give Magda money and a passport which will enable the former spy to leave Turkey. Although Carstairs gives Mrs. Pollifax only 30 minutes to get ready, the plucky widow is ready for another adventure. She flies to Turkey and sees Magda, but she is unable to make personal contact before Magda flees. In pursuing her mission, Mrs. Pollifax embarks on a wild ride, matching wits with a diabolical double agent, traveling with Gypsies, and again surviving imprisonment. However, characteristically, she befriends unlikely allies along her way.
Mrs. Pollifax is sent, as a tourist, on a routine assignment, to deliver the eight forged passports she is carrying, concealed in her hat, to the Bulgarian Underground. Unbeknownst to her, her boss, Carstairs, has been strong-armed into having her take other items along, sewn into her coat. On the way, she meets a group of back-packing college students at an airport, and offers to help when one of them is arrested by the secret police, upon arriving in Sofia. Mrs. Pollifax then leads both friends and foes on a merry chase, as she travels around Bulgaria, on a series of absorbing, and interwoven, adventures, including helping to rescue the student and several political prisoners from the seemingly impregnable Panchevsky Institute.
Mrs. Pollifax is dispatched to Switzerland to find some missing plutonium: Mr. Carstairs of the CIA suspects the contraband has been hidden in an upscale clinic in Switzerland. Mrs. Pollifax begins a careful investigation of the guests at the clinic and rapidly befriends a young British man, a Belgian woman, and a young boy and his grandmother from an Arab nation. She soon discovers that very few of the clinic patients are who they claim to be and she becomes involved in intrigue with men who plan to overthrow the government of a small country. She, of course, displays the courage and ingenuity which Mr. Carstairs has learned to depend on, and she leads her outnumbered friends into the adventure of their lives.
Mrs. Pollifax is called upon by the CIA to undertake another mission; this time to photograph members of a safari in Zambia, one of whom is an international assassin nicknamed Aristotle. She innocently posts an ad in the local newspaper trying to contact her old friend Farrell from the first book. This leads to major complications as Farrell is involved with the freedom fighters across the border and has made some enemies. Another entertaining outing and with a bit of romance as a fellow traveler takes a fancy to Mrs. Pollifax.
Mrs. Pollifax is thrilled when Mr. Carstairs, her boss at the CIA, gives her an assignment to China to help rescue a prisoner from a labor camp. As luck would have it, she has recently completed a course in Chinese history, so she is primed and ready to go. She joins a tour group and is told that one of the other group members is actually a CIA agent who will become her partner later on. She tries unsuccessfully to detect her future partner and is very surprised when the agent's identity is revealed. As the action speeds up she finds the labor camp, she rides a runaway horse and encounters some rough stuff from a Russian spy. But she always comes through in the end.
Mrs. Pollifax flies on a moment's notice to Hong Kong, to contact Sheng Ti, whom she met in an earlier book and find out what is going on at Feng Imports where Sheng Ti is working for an agent named Detwiler. Detwiler's reports to the CIA have proved to be false, so he is suspected of being a counterspy and giving evidence to the enemy. Mrs. Pollifax meets some other interesting characters, including a psychic, and another old friend who is a reformed cat burglar while in pursuit of the truth about Feng Imports. She is captured and tortured, but overcomes as always.
This time Mrs. Pollifax's assignment seems simple: while she and her husband Cyrus Reed are vacationing in Thailand, she is to pick up some valuable information on drug smuggling from an informant called Ruamsak. Everything goes awry immediately: Ruamsak is murdered, Cyrus is kidnapped and Emily joins forces with Bonchoo, an intriguing stranger with complex reasons of his own for wanting to find Cyrus. The usual phalanx of muddled but supportive CIA agents try to follow Emily through the jungles of Thailand and are seriously rattled when one of their directors abruptly vanishes, only to reappear in the Golden Triangle as the head of all illicit drug trafficking. Pollifax needs all her wiles and her considerable skills in the martial arts, not only to track her husband but also to put a serious dent in the heroin trade. She accomplishes everything with vigor and charm.
Mrs. Pollifax is dispatched to Morocco to provide a cover for another of their agents, Max Janko. She will pose as Max's aunt to make the pair look like tourists, while in reality they will be trying to identify all seven Moroccan CIA operatives in order to ferret out the mole who has recently infiltrated the Atlas network, a secret branch of the CIA. Anticipating a relatively serene journey through picturesque Moroccan villages with an agreeable companion, Mrs. Pollifax is dismayed to find Janko insufferably hostile. Worse, he intends to kill her. By the time the real Janko shows up, a murder has occurred, and Mrs. Pollifax and her inexperienced companion are running for their lives from one dusty hamlet to the next, desperately trying to find the informer and save the rest of the network.
Mrs. Pollifax travels to Sicily in this latest adventure. Former colleague John Farrell, hired to crack a safe and lift a document signed by Julius Caesar sends an SOS while dodging a professional assassin whom he and Mrs. Pollifax jailed some years ago. Soon she too is ducking bullets and the old pals are forced to hole up in the Villa Franca--part farm, part medieval fortress and full-time residence of young CIA agent Kate Rossiter's eccentric aunt. Ancient artifacts, hair-raising chases, art forgery, arms traffic, a nighttime assault on the villa, mysterious millionaires, spectacular scenery and unexpected romance are some of the ingredients simmering in the plot.
The observant and unflappable Mrs. Pollifax discovers a young woman hiding in a closet of her Connecticut home on the same day that she observes a suspicious white van patrolling the neighborhood. Kadi Hopkirk says the men in the van have been following her ever since she met Sammy, a childhood friend from the African country of Ubangiba. Mrs. Pollifax hides Kadi in the car and takes to the highway but is unable to shake the van until she calls on her colleagues at the CIA, who send a helicopter to whisk them away to a traveling carnival in rural Maine. Mrs. Pollifax poses as a journalist, and Kadi becomes the lower half of the woman who is sawed in two, while the CIA pals find out who Sammy is and why he is being so heavily guarded. Mrs. Pollifax adroitly solves several mysteries, including a stabbing at the carnival, Kadi and Sammy's story and the abduction of a wealthy executive.
The sequel to "Mrs. Pollifax Pursued", in which we meet Kadi Hopkirk, the daughter of Ubangiba missionaries. Kadi's college friend Sammy is now trying to rule Ubangiba after many years of dictatorship. Sammy calls upon Kadi for help and Mrs. Pollifax decides to accompany her to Africa. There have been a series of violent deaths at the hands of a "lion killer", one who dons a lion costume, and Sammy's enemies have accused him of being behind the murders. When Kadi arrives in Ubangiba, she becomes the target of an old enemy, and Mrs. Pollifax does her best to protect the young girl. A potential archaeological dig and the hint of romance for Kadi combine with political intrigue and murder to create another satisfying story of Mrs. Pollifax.
Mrs. Pollifax travels to Jordan with former Company agent John Sebastian Farrell to receive a manuscript smuggled from Iraq, written by an executed dissident Iraqi novelist. As Farrell's cover, Mrs. Pollifax poses as his tourist cousin but immediately is up to her flowered straw hat in intrigue. Farrell's contact doesn't show up for their scheduled meeting at the Crusader castle at Karak, although Emily does find a dead body there. When their guide, Youseff, and his sister, Hanan, invite them to visit their grandfather, a desert sheik, they're trailed by Jordanian terrorists, the Iraqi secret police and Jordanian police. The climax occurs at an ancient desert fort after a whirlwind of brisk action and seductive scenery.
Mrs. Pollifax teams up with freelance CIA agent John Farrell on an investigation into the disappearance of Amanda Pym in Syria
. Ms. Pym was a fifteen-minute media superstar when she allegedly stopped an airplane hijacking from succeeding. Witnesses last saw Amanda enter a vehicle that waited for her at the Damascus
Airport. Farrell and Mrs. Pollifax land in Syria where the government places a tail on the duo. However, they quickly elude their shadow in order to obtain information that provides them with the first clue in their hunt. They soon enter the Syrian Desert where they meet American archeologist Joe Fleming. Joining the two operatives on their quest, Joe and the two spies seek an elusive individual who seems to be undergoing a rigorous training for a mission that has world implications.
Hero
A hero , in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion...
ine of a series of comic spy
Spy fiction
Spy fiction, literature concerning the forms of espionage, was a sub-genre derived from the novel during the nineteenth century, which then evolved into a discrete genre before the First World War , when governments established modern intelligence agencies in the early twentieth century...
-mystery
Mystery fiction
Mystery fiction is a loosely-defined term.1.It is often used as a synonym for detective fiction or crime fiction— in other words a novel or short story in which a detective investigates and solves a crime mystery. Sometimes mystery books are nonfiction...
novels by Dorothy Gilman
Dorothy Gilman
Dorothy Gilman born June 25, 1923 is a United States author of mystery and spy fiction. She is most well known for the Mrs...
. Mrs. Pollifax is a widow
Widow
A widow is a woman whose spouse has died, while a widower is a man whose spouse has died. The state of having lost one's spouse to death is termed widowhood or occasionally viduity. The adjective form is widowed...
and senior citizen
Senior citizen
Senior citizen is a common polite designation for an elderly person in both UK and US English, and it implies or means that the person is retired. This in turn implies or in fact means that the person is over the retirement age, which varies according to country. Synonyms include pensioner in UK...
who decides one day to leave her comfortable apartment in New Brunswick
New Brunswick, New Jersey
New Brunswick is a city in Middlesex County, New Jersey, USA. It is the county seat and the home of Rutgers University. The city is located on the Northeast Corridor rail line, southwest of Manhattan, on the southern bank of the Raritan River. At the 2010 United States Census, the population of...
, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
and join the CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
. Through an initial misunderstanding, Mrs. Pollifax is given a simple courier
Courier
A courier is a person or a company who delivers messages, packages, and mail. Couriers are distinguished from ordinary mail services by features such as speed, security, tracking, signature, specialization and individualization of express services, and swift delivery times, which are optional for...
assignment by Operations Chief, Mr. Carstairs, and her ensuing adventure leads her into to a career in espionage.
The Emily Pollifax novels frequently employ comic relief and suspense. A consistent theme throughout the series is Mrs. Pollifax' tendency to take an interest in people who seem disconnected with her mission, but who either become part of the investigation and/or who prove to be of invaluable assistance to resolving the case. Recurring characters include Bishop, Carstairs' assistant; John Sebastian Farrell, an agent turned art dealer; and in later books, Cyrus Reed, a man with whom Mrs. Pollifax finds romance late in life. Most of the novels take place in existing countries and include authentic details; however, characters in the stories sometimes originate from fictional places that resemble groups of non-fiction countries. An example of this trait is evidenced by a character in A Palm for Mrs. Pollifax who is from Zabya, a fictional Middle Eastern monarchy described as one of "those Arabian oil-producing countries." In addition, as is common in the spy fiction genre, many of the stories taking place in the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
era are set in Iron Curtain
Iron Curtain
The concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989...
countries or include rival spies from Communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
countries.
Mrs. Pollifax in film
In 1971 a theatrical filmFilm
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
named Mrs. Pollifax—Spy
Mrs. Pollifax-Spy
Mrs. Pollifax-Spy is a 1971 adventure film directed by Leslie H. Martinson. It stars Rosalind Russell and Darren McGavin.-Cast:*Rosalind Russell as Mrs. Pollifax*Darren McGavin as Farrell*Nehemiah Persoff as Berisha*Harold Gould as Nexdhet...
, based on the book The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, was made. It starred Rosalind Russell
Rosalind Russell
Rosalind Russell was an American actress of stage and screen, perhaps best known for her role as a fast-talking newspaper reporter in the Howard Hawks screwball comedy His Girl Friday, as well as the role of Mame Dennis in the film Auntie Mame...
in the title role, and she was also credited as contributing to the story idea under a pseudonym.
In 1999 a CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
television movie
Television movie
A television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to...
based on The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax was made starring Angela Lansbury
Angela Lansbury
Angela Brigid Lansbury CBE is an English actress and singer in theatre, television and motion pictures, whose career has spanned eight decades and earned her more performance Tony Awards than any other individual , with five wins...
in the title role.
One of these films (Mrs. Pollifax) is currently available for streaming from Netflix.
Books in the Mrs. Pollifax series
- The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax (1966)
Mrs. Pollifax is an elderly widow who has come to find life dull and is almost ready to end it all out of sheer boredom. Inspired by a newspaper profile of an actress who began her career in later life, she decides to fulfill a childhood ambition and apply for a job as a spy at the CIA. Meanwhile, Carstairs at the CIA is looking for an agent who can pass as a tourist in order to pick up some important microfilms in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
. Due to a slight confusion, he thinks Mrs. Pollifax is one of the candidates and decides that Mrs. Pollifax is ideal; Carstairs decided this assignment carries so little danger that even one who is relatively untrained may be sent. So with minimum explanation, Pollifax is ushered off to Mexico City to meet a bookstore owner/secret agent, exchange code phrases, leave with a book containing the microfilm. Of course, the courier mission does not go as planned, and Mrs. Pollifax finds herself in a prison in Iron Curtain-era
Iron Curtain
The concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989...
Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
, facing harsh questioning and possible torture. But she proves to be unusually resourceful, and with her companion's assistance, manages to outwit the enemy and save the day.
- The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax (1970)
For this novel, Mrs. Pollifax is called again by Mr. Carstairs, her CIA superior. This time, he asks her to go to Turkey and contact Magda Ferenci-Sabo, a known Russian spy and secret double agent who is defecting to the Free World. Emily Pollifax is to give Magda money and a passport which will enable the former spy to leave Turkey. Although Carstairs gives Mrs. Pollifax only 30 minutes to get ready, the plucky widow is ready for another adventure. She flies to Turkey and sees Magda, but she is unable to make personal contact before Magda flees. In pursuing her mission, Mrs. Pollifax embarks on a wild ride, matching wits with a diabolical double agent, traveling with Gypsies, and again surviving imprisonment. However, characteristically, she befriends unlikely allies along her way.
- The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax (1971)
Mrs. Pollifax is sent, as a tourist, on a routine assignment, to deliver the eight forged passports she is carrying, concealed in her hat, to the Bulgarian Underground. Unbeknownst to her, her boss, Carstairs, has been strong-armed into having her take other items along, sewn into her coat. On the way, she meets a group of back-packing college students at an airport, and offers to help when one of them is arrested by the secret police, upon arriving in Sofia. Mrs. Pollifax then leads both friends and foes on a merry chase, as she travels around Bulgaria, on a series of absorbing, and interwoven, adventures, including helping to rescue the student and several political prisoners from the seemingly impregnable Panchevsky Institute.
- A Palm for Mrs. Pollifax (1973)
Mrs. Pollifax is dispatched to Switzerland to find some missing plutonium: Mr. Carstairs of the CIA suspects the contraband has been hidden in an upscale clinic in Switzerland. Mrs. Pollifax begins a careful investigation of the guests at the clinic and rapidly befriends a young British man, a Belgian woman, and a young boy and his grandmother from an Arab nation. She soon discovers that very few of the clinic patients are who they claim to be and she becomes involved in intrigue with men who plan to overthrow the government of a small country. She, of course, displays the courage and ingenuity which Mr. Carstairs has learned to depend on, and she leads her outnumbered friends into the adventure of their lives.
- Mrs. Pollifax on Safari (1976)
Mrs. Pollifax is called upon by the CIA to undertake another mission; this time to photograph members of a safari in Zambia, one of whom is an international assassin nicknamed Aristotle. She innocently posts an ad in the local newspaper trying to contact her old friend Farrell from the first book. This leads to major complications as Farrell is involved with the freedom fighters across the border and has made some enemies. Another entertaining outing and with a bit of romance as a fellow traveler takes a fancy to Mrs. Pollifax.
- Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station (1983)
Mrs. Pollifax is thrilled when Mr. Carstairs, her boss at the CIA, gives her an assignment to China to help rescue a prisoner from a labor camp. As luck would have it, she has recently completed a course in Chinese history, so she is primed and ready to go. She joins a tour group and is told that one of the other group members is actually a CIA agent who will become her partner later on. She tries unsuccessfully to detect her future partner and is very surprised when the agent's identity is revealed. As the action speeds up she finds the labor camp, she rides a runaway horse and encounters some rough stuff from a Russian spy. But she always comes through in the end.
- Mrs. Pollifax and the Hong Kong Buddha (1985)
Mrs. Pollifax flies on a moment's notice to Hong Kong, to contact Sheng Ti, whom she met in an earlier book and find out what is going on at Feng Imports where Sheng Ti is working for an agent named Detwiler. Detwiler's reports to the CIA have proved to be false, so he is suspected of being a counterspy and giving evidence to the enemy. Mrs. Pollifax meets some other interesting characters, including a psychic, and another old friend who is a reformed cat burglar while in pursuit of the truth about Feng Imports. She is captured and tortured, but overcomes as always.
- Mrs. Pollifax and the Golden Triangle (1988)
This time Mrs. Pollifax's assignment seems simple: while she and her husband Cyrus Reed are vacationing in Thailand, she is to pick up some valuable information on drug smuggling from an informant called Ruamsak. Everything goes awry immediately: Ruamsak is murdered, Cyrus is kidnapped and Emily joins forces with Bonchoo, an intriguing stranger with complex reasons of his own for wanting to find Cyrus. The usual phalanx of muddled but supportive CIA agents try to follow Emily through the jungles of Thailand and are seriously rattled when one of their directors abruptly vanishes, only to reappear in the Golden Triangle as the head of all illicit drug trafficking. Pollifax needs all her wiles and her considerable skills in the martial arts, not only to track her husband but also to put a serious dent in the heroin trade. She accomplishes everything with vigor and charm.
- Mrs. Pollifax and the Whirling Dervish (1990)
Mrs. Pollifax is dispatched to Morocco to provide a cover for another of their agents, Max Janko. She will pose as Max's aunt to make the pair look like tourists, while in reality they will be trying to identify all seven Moroccan CIA operatives in order to ferret out the mole who has recently infiltrated the Atlas network, a secret branch of the CIA. Anticipating a relatively serene journey through picturesque Moroccan villages with an agreeable companion, Mrs. Pollifax is dismayed to find Janko insufferably hostile. Worse, he intends to kill her. By the time the real Janko shows up, a murder has occurred, and Mrs. Pollifax and her inexperienced companion are running for their lives from one dusty hamlet to the next, desperately trying to find the informer and save the rest of the network.
- Mrs. Pollifax and the Second Thief (1993)
Mrs. Pollifax travels to Sicily in this latest adventure. Former colleague John Farrell, hired to crack a safe and lift a document signed by Julius Caesar sends an SOS while dodging a professional assassin whom he and Mrs. Pollifax jailed some years ago. Soon she too is ducking bullets and the old pals are forced to hole up in the Villa Franca--part farm, part medieval fortress and full-time residence of young CIA agent Kate Rossiter's eccentric aunt. Ancient artifacts, hair-raising chases, art forgery, arms traffic, a nighttime assault on the villa, mysterious millionaires, spectacular scenery and unexpected romance are some of the ingredients simmering in the plot.
- Mrs. Pollifax Pursued (1995)
The observant and unflappable Mrs. Pollifax discovers a young woman hiding in a closet of her Connecticut home on the same day that she observes a suspicious white van patrolling the neighborhood. Kadi Hopkirk says the men in the van have been following her ever since she met Sammy, a childhood friend from the African country of Ubangiba. Mrs. Pollifax hides Kadi in the car and takes to the highway but is unable to shake the van until she calls on her colleagues at the CIA, who send a helicopter to whisk them away to a traveling carnival in rural Maine. Mrs. Pollifax poses as a journalist, and Kadi becomes the lower half of the woman who is sawed in two, while the CIA pals find out who Sammy is and why he is being so heavily guarded. Mrs. Pollifax adroitly solves several mysteries, including a stabbing at the carnival, Kadi and Sammy's story and the abduction of a wealthy executive.
- Mrs. Pollifax and the Lion Killer (1996)
The sequel to "Mrs. Pollifax Pursued", in which we meet Kadi Hopkirk, the daughter of Ubangiba missionaries. Kadi's college friend Sammy is now trying to rule Ubangiba after many years of dictatorship. Sammy calls upon Kadi for help and Mrs. Pollifax decides to accompany her to Africa. There have been a series of violent deaths at the hands of a "lion killer", one who dons a lion costume, and Sammy's enemies have accused him of being behind the murders. When Kadi arrives in Ubangiba, she becomes the target of an old enemy, and Mrs. Pollifax does her best to protect the young girl. A potential archaeological dig and the hint of romance for Kadi combine with political intrigue and murder to create another satisfying story of Mrs. Pollifax.
- Mrs. Pollifax, Innocent Tourist (1997)
Mrs. Pollifax travels to Jordan with former Company agent John Sebastian Farrell to receive a manuscript smuggled from Iraq, written by an executed dissident Iraqi novelist. As Farrell's cover, Mrs. Pollifax poses as his tourist cousin but immediately is up to her flowered straw hat in intrigue. Farrell's contact doesn't show up for their scheduled meeting at the Crusader castle at Karak, although Emily does find a dead body there. When their guide, Youseff, and his sister, Hanan, invite them to visit their grandfather, a desert sheik, they're trailed by Jordanian terrorists, the Iraqi secret police and Jordanian police. The climax occurs at an ancient desert fort after a whirlwind of brisk action and seductive scenery.
- Mrs. Pollifax Unveiled (2000)
Mrs. Pollifax teams up with freelance CIA agent John Farrell on an investigation into the disappearance of Amanda Pym in Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
. Ms. Pym was a fifteen-minute media superstar when she allegedly stopped an airplane hijacking from succeeding. Witnesses last saw Amanda enter a vehicle that waited for her at the Damascus
Damascus
Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...
Airport. Farrell and Mrs. Pollifax land in Syria where the government places a tail on the duo. However, they quickly elude their shadow in order to obtain information that provides them with the first clue in their hunt. They soon enter the Syrian Desert where they meet American archeologist Joe Fleming. Joining the two operatives on their quest, Joe and the two spies seek an elusive individual who seems to be undergoing a rigorous training for a mission that has world implications.