Mrs Pollifax: The Spy I Heard By Chance

Sonali Bhatia reviews the Mrs Pollifax series by Dorothy Gilman. A delightful series that found her through an erroneous click!

It is perhaps fitting that Mrs Pollifax entered my life quite by chance. My eyesight having weakened, I now ‘read’ by listening to audiobooks. In my search for another, totally different book, I happened to click, in error, on ‘Mrs. Pollifax on Safari’ by Dorothy Gilman. Instead of my usual reaction of clicking back out and continuing my search for the book I wanted, I stopped and listened. The narrator, Barbara Rosenblat, is superb with her voice modulation and held my attention.

Within minutes, I was completely hooked to the tale that was unfolding.

Mrs Pollifax, it turned out, is a spy for the CIA – having become a spy quite by chance in her sixties. She is a delightful character with her penchant for crazy hats and her fondness for writing and receiving snail-mail. Maybe that’s why I love her – I’m known for my collection of hats myself, and I send out snail-mail letters by the dozen each month. But those characteristics aside, Mrs Pollifax possesses an uncanny ability to perceive things others miss out on. She also happens to have a brown belt in karate. Some tell me she sounds a bit like Jane Marple. So – it’s confession time. I don’t know anything about Jane Marple, not having read the books by Agatha Christie. Somehow, mysteries haven’t been my cup of tea thus far and it’s intriguing to me that I should love the Mrs Pollifax books so much. I’m trying to figure out why.

It’s because of Mrs Pollifax herself, mainly. Her charm, her innocent appearance, her absolute integrity, loyalty and courage. And her incredible sense of humour. Returning from an adventure with her arm in a sling, she responds to her husband’s anxious ‘Not a broken arm?’ with a dismissive ‘No, no, darling, just a bullet.’ She is also well versed in human nature, observing people’s reactions, their gestures, their eyes, and picking up clues where none exist for her fellow agents. She forms deep friendships and shares her wisdom with new-found friends, in pithy and profound one-liners like ‘There are no happy endings, Jenny, only happy people.’ A completely lovable character who is well up to the larger-than-life situations that face her.

Image courtesy: Amazon.com

What faces her is travel. The books, set in various countries across the globe, give a rich understanding of local people and customs and an idea of the history and politics of the region. The terrain and architecture are vividly described. The plot is usually woven in with the politics, and a series of events leading to a breathtaking climax. Though I am new to spy/detective fiction, I think I can say that the author, Dorothy Gilman, is completely fair to her readers. All the pieces of the jigsaw are provided, and I have never felt that the solution was unfair. There are always hints to point the reader in the right direction, should the reader be inclined to solve the mystery along with the protagonist.

The protagonist, who points out that language isn’t a barrier to ferreting out information because human beings are the same the world over, with their hopes and aspirations, greed and hatred, all of which are mirrored by the eyes and need verbal utterance.

To those readers for whom the plot is important and spoilers are not welcome, I’d advise you to read the books in reading order. Characters often refer to earlier adventures (‘they had first met each other when they were tied back-to-back by hoodlums’), and in a few cases, the same character appears in a subsequent book with a new agenda. A villain sometimes re-appears as a sympathizer or vice-versa. I’m listening to the books in random order and enjoying them.

Being, on the whole, averse to the bloodshed that is common in mystery novels, I was happy to find it confined in the Mrs Pollifax books only to scenes in which it was really required. Only one book of the eight I’ve heard so far, “Mrs Pollifax and the Lion Killer” has sinister undertones throughout and creeped me out a bit. Regular readers of mystery novels might also be able to discern the hint of a formula in the writing (two sub-plots converging; the first arrest being incorrect and so on) but this in no way detracts from the enjoyment of the book.

What may detract younger readers is the dated technology. The fourteen books span two-and-a-half decades, from the sixties to the eighties, and such dilemmas as how to send a cable without the switchboard operator knowing the contents would not be relatable to nowadays.

I hope some readers do actually click on the free audiobooks and allow Dorothy Gilman and Barbara Rosenblat to carry them into the delightful world of Mrs Pollifax. She is the one who has made me appreciate the genre, and I’m grateful.

Cover image courtesy: Pixabay

Sonali Bhatia is an avid reader.  She is also a dedicated post-mark collector and has written about this rare and interesting hobby for us. Read about her quest for Post Cancellation Marks here.