Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station

Mrs. Pollifax is still seeing Cyrus and he is visiting Africa when Carstairs invites her to go to China. The goal is to be a tourist but while there make contact with a Chinese man who once was in a labor camp and find the location of the camp. Another agent is also on the trip and he will go armed with the location to free a prisoner that the Russians want badly. A Russian double had tipped the CIA to this. Getting out of China is not easy let alone with a prisoner. Pollifax of course is generally underestimated and makes new friends along the way in some unlikely places. Not quite as improbable as usual, but still good fun.

Mrs. Pollifax must "unscrew the inscrutable" in her first journey to Communist China--although in fact the Chinese turn out to be less inscrutable than her fellow Americans for most of the book. Even her handlers, Carstairs and Bishop, admit that the job is dangerous--but Mrs. P has "always been so curious" about the place that she leaps at the chance to go there. It seems that a certain man is in a labor camp in the far western regions of the country, though a clerical error has resulted in his captors not being aware of his true identity, and the CIA, which fears that the Russians may want him, is eager to extract him before they can (or befire the Chinese realize who they've got). Mrs. Pollifax is to join a guided tour with several of her countrymen (one of whom will also be a CIA agent) and make contact with an informant who can provide a map to the camp. She must also carry some supplies for the escapees to use when they make their break for the border. At first all goes well, and Mrs. P amuses herself by trying to decide which of her fellow tourists is feeding her a cover story for the benefit of any eavesdropping Celestials. The Chinese people, in fact, she finds delightful, warm and hospitable. But when the other agent is actually revealed, she's stunned. Only then does she discover that Carstairs himself was betrayed by a double agent who apparently isn't double any more, and that she and her unwilling partner are in peril of their lives from more than just the Chinese government.

This volume in the ongoing series rather messes up continuity: the last one Mrs. Pollifax on Safari was set during or directly after the Watergate scandal, but this one, which flatly places itself as a year later, refers to events of 1979. Nevertheless Mrs. P continues sprightly, creative, and brave, and her venture into the world's most populous nation should offer thrills enough for all her fans.

I was introduced to Mrs. Pollifax many years ago when I worked in a school library. I soon realized that her stories were ones I could enjoy over and over. Thank you, the store, for giving me the opportunity to build my own personal Mrs. Pollifax collection!

This book is #6 in the Mrs. Pollifax series. Published in 1983, like all of Gilman's books it was based on her personal travel experiences and recollections.

In this particular episode, the CIA has pried unlikely agent Mrs. Pollifax loose from her garden club, church group and karate lessons to tour China. Her mission: establish contact with a man who may have secret information, and then provide cover for an unknown fellow traveler / CIA agent to help an escapee from a labor camp at a vague location. As you can tell from that description, we're in the very early days of opening up the People's Republic of China, and much of the danger of this mission is due to that fact.

The tour Mrs. Pollifax takes is a group tour, and since this is in PRC, there's no "free time." If you've traveled on any group tour covering a large geography, you'll be accustomed to the travel described; from plane, to train, to bus, with an hour at a department store (all that's missing is the boat ride down the Yangtze), with lots of "who am I sitting next to now" descriptions. Not surprisingly, there are many more personal interactions than adventurous shots fired in #6.

Although I haven't read every Mrs. Pollifax up to this edition, and am unlikely to read any series in order - since my endless childhood search for Nancy Drew #1, that's an investment I save for Star Wars movies - I didn't find any references that left me...clueless. Although I wasn't surprised about every revelation, I was about several. There was a nice wrap up, in tune with Mrs. Pollifax's generous nature. I find Mrs. Pollifax as a character consistently enjoyable, if not consistently surprising.

Mrs. Pollifax is still seeing Cyrus and he is visiting Africa when Carstairs invites her to go to China. The goal is to be a tourist but while there make contact with a Chinese man who once was in a labor camp and find the location of the camp. Another agent is also on the trip and he will go armed with the location to free a prisoner that the Russians want badly. A Russian double had tipped the CIA to this. Getting out of China is not easy let alone with a prisoner. Pollifax of course is generally underestimated and makes new friends along the way in some unlikely places. Not quite as improbable as usual, but still good fun.

Mrs. Pollifax must "unscrew the inscrutable" in her first journey to Communist China--although in fact the Chinese turn out to be less inscrutable than her fellow Americans for most of the book. Even her handlers, Carstairs and Bishop, admit that the job is dangerous--but Mrs. P has "always been so curious" about the place that she leaps at the chance to go there. It seems that a certain man is in a labor camp in the far western regions of the country, though a clerical error has resulted in his captors not being aware of his true identity, and the CIA, which fears that the Russians may want him, is eager to extract him before they can (or befire the Chinese realize who they've got). Mrs. Pollifax is to join a guided tour with several of her countrymen (one of whom will also be a CIA agent) and make contact with an informant who can provide a map to the camp. She must also carry some supplies for the escapees to use when they make their break for the border. At first all goes well, and Mrs. P amuses herself by trying to decide which of her fellow tourists is feeding her a cover story for the benefit of any eavesdropping Celestials. The Chinese people, in fact, she finds delightful, warm and hospitable. But when the other agent is actually revealed, she's stunned. Only then does she discover that Carstairs himself was betrayed by a double agent who apparently isn't double any more, and that she and her unwilling partner are in peril of their lives from more than just the Chinese government.

This volume in the ongoing series rather messes up continuity: the last one Mrs. Pollifax on Safari was set during or directly after the Watergate scandal, but this one, which flatly places itself as a year later, refers to events of 1979. Nevertheless Mrs. P continues sprightly, creative, and brave, and her venture into the world's most populous nation should offer thrills enough for all her fans.

Take a trip with Mrs. Pollifax as she eagerly embarks on her next adventure. She will sneak an agent into China who must find a prisoner and sneak him out to the West. With little to go on, she sets out with a tourist group, not knowing which member is the agent or where the prison camp is. Along with Mrs. Pollifax we try to figure out who the agent is and who they can trust--or not. For surely a secret danger lurks at hand.

Here is a fun read, a cozy with intriguing characters, interesting tourist experiences, and a few surprises.

I have only read Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station once, back in 1996. I really didn't remember much about it other than feeling like there was very little story to the book. I thought maybe going into it expecting less would make it a better book. The reality matched my expectations.

The book opens with Mrs. Pollifax getting her latest assignment from Carstairs, her boss at the CIA. See, Mrs. Pollifax fills her spare time with garden club meetings, karate, and the occasional job as the most unlikely spy ever. This time around, she's heading to China. She's joining a tour group. All she has to do is break away from the tour in Xian long enough to find the barber beneath the Drum Tower and find out the precise location of a camp for political prisoners. Someone else on her tour, and Mrs. Pollifax isn't to know who until he makes contact, will use that information to free one political prisoner in particular, someone that the Russians have expressed quite a bit of interest in due to his knowledge of the China/Russia border.

Once she arrives, Mrs. Pollifax quickly realizes that her assignment will not be easy. The group is under constant surveillance by their guide, a member of the China Travel Service. And Mrs. Pollifax begins to suspect that, even if she can get the information, her partner may not be able to sneak away from the tour group to use it. Will this mission be successful?

This was the sixth book in the series, and came out in 1983. As usual, the events are shaped by the political realities of the time. There is lots of talk about the changes, or lack there of, taking place in China as a result of Mao's death. The interior, where most of the book takes place, had just recently been opened for tourists. Details like that always make these books interesting.

Unfortunately, those details also slow this book down. The first half reads more like a travelogue than a spy adventure. Even when the plot picks up in the second half, it is still bogged down by travel. The few twists are either telegraphed well in advance or so clumsily handled that they feel forced into the story from another book. The climax is over almost before it begins.

Fortunately, Mrs. Pollifax herself is still very fun to spend time with. She is her normal, charming self. The growth she's developed by this point in the series is rather obvious by how she handles some events later in the book. The rest of the cast only really starts to take shape later in the book. I had trouble keeping them all straight early in the book, and one or two never fully form as characters. The rest don't come into their own until the second half, making this a second half book in every way.

I have no proof, but I have long suspected that author Dorothy Gilman had tired of the character. True, it was only book six, but those six books were written over a 17 year period. I feel like she signed a contract for another book intending to make it the last and then couldn't come up with a decent plot, padding the first half with the travelogue. The Mrs. Pollifax's character growth and the end of the book definitely feel like a conclusion, and if the series had ended here, I think most fans would have been satisfied. Of course, since the author went on to write 8 more books about the character, maybe I am wrong.

Either way, the second half is barely enough to give Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station a recommendation for fans. But if you have yet to meet this charming, engaging character, you'll be better served by picking up one of the earlier entries in what is one of my favorite series.

It would be hard to imagine a more unlikely international spy and detective than the Emily Pollifax, garden club habitue, geranium raiser, suburban grandmother, and brown belt karate expert. But there you have it--and it all works just beautifully.

I've read about all of the Pollifax books, and so far this is the best. Mrs. Pollifax is contacted by her CIA superior and given the dangerous assignment of going to the Peoples Republic of China (during the Cold War) and rescuing a Chinese engineer who is in a remote-area labor camp/prison. In the tourist group with Mrs. Pollifax is another CIA agent, but Mrs. Pollifax is not told who he is. This secret is kept for about half the book.

The tour of China alone is quite good all by itself, especially when the tour group arrives at the Taklamakan Desert in western China. The other operative makes himself known to Mrs. Pollifax, and together they work to rescue the Chinese engineer--but not without great danger, a Soviet spy who intervenes because the USSR wants the engineer as well, and heroics on the part of the heroine. Miss Marple she is not, unless that spinster has learned to perform karate under extreme duress.

This book is satisfying on all counts: interesting plot, atmosphere, fine characterizations, and realistic dialogue. It is to be hoped that this book will remain in print for a long time.

Mrs. Pollifax is thrilled when Mr. Carstairs, her boss at the CIA, gives her an assignment to China. As luck would have it, Mrs. P. 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. She sees a lot of interesting Chinese countryside and tries to get acquainted with other tour group members. Later in the book, she rides a runaway horse and encounters some rough stuff from a Russian spy. This book, as the others in the series, is charming, and a little romance adds some pizzazz to this one.

Mrs. Polifax has received a new assignment, to help a prisoner with valuable information to escape a labor camp. Using her usual resourcefulness, she battles the normal issues of throwing a group of tourists together, an innocent young man without the proper papers, and assists a real CIA operative to disguise himself to accomplish the task.

While the skills of Mrs. Polifax is increasing, her unexpected quirkiness is missing. She is still unconventional but not as unexpected. So when things go wrong, in this novel they go wrong in a different way when she is caught in a lie.

Still, it is fun, and a st for Mrs. Polifax fans.

I really enjoyed Mrs. Pollifax and the China Station. For folks who don't know who Mrs. Pollifax is, she's a 'sweet little old lady' who just happens to work for the CIA and have a brown belt in Karate. The stories are always filled with adventure, suspense, and yet, are for the most part wholesome and 'cozy.'
In this installment, Mrs. Pollifax is sent to China disguised as a tourist, to help rescue a prisoner from a labor camp. Armed with very minimal information and a secret partner, Mrs. Pollifax and friends, must find a way to extricate Missing Mr. " X" from China, without getting arrested, detained or worse... Killed!
This was a great installment in the Mrs. P. series. Although some of the minor characters were irritating: i.e. Jenny, and 'perfect all-knowing' Iris, I liked seeing Mrs. Pollifax in action, and her interaction with her co-agent was amusing.
Definitely a must for Mrs. P. Fans.... A fun, light mystery sure to entertain just about everyone.

I was introduced to Mrs. Pollifax many years ago when I worked in a school library. I soon realized that her stories were ones I could enjoy over and over. Thank you, the store, for giving me the opportunity to build my own personal Mrs. Pollifax collection!

Great book! Mrs. Pollifax is off for another adventure as a CIA courtier. She has a lot of hardships along the way but she always comes out on top! You gotta love a senior citizen who can use judo to knock out the competition!

Dorothy Gilman rarely ceases to amaze with her talent at keeping the pages turning. In "Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station," Gilman once again creates plausible situations that never fail to catch the reader off guard. Again it is nearly impossible to decide whom to trust. A very fun read!

The sixth book in this cozy mystery series was written while the Cold War was ongoing and China was emerging from isolation. I liked the characters, the mystery behind the operation, and the descriptions. One situation was quite jarring for me, but then the series does have some dependence on Mrs. Pollifax's good luck.

You'll need to have read the earlier books in the series to fully enjoy this one. I knocked it down a half star for the jarring situation. I'm rounding it down because of an unlikely coincidence.

This book is #6 in the Mrs. Pollifax series. Published in 1983, like all of Gilman's books it was based on her personal travel experiences and recollections.

In this particular episode, the CIA has pried unlikely agent Mrs. Pollifax loose from her garden club, church group and karate lessons to tour China. Her mission: establish contact with a man who may have secret information, and then provide cover for an unknown fellow traveler / CIA agent to help an escapee from a labor camp at a vague location. As you can tell from that description, we're in the very early days of opening up the People's Republic of China, and much of the danger of this mission is due to that fact.

The tour Mrs. Pollifax takes is a group tour, and since this is in PRC, there's no "free time." If you've traveled on any group tour covering a large geography, you'll be accustomed to the travel described; from plane, to train, to bus, with an hour at a department store (all that's missing is the boat ride down the Yangtze), with lots of "who am I sitting next to now" descriptions. Not surprisingly, there are many more personal interactions than adventurous shots fired in #6.

Although I haven't read every Mrs. Pollifax up to this edition, and am unlikely to read any series in order - since my endless childhood search for Nancy Drew #1, that's an investment I save for Star Wars movies - I didn't find any references that left me...clueless. Although I wasn't surprised about every revelation, I was about several. There was a nice wrap up, in tune with Mrs. Pollifax's generous nature. I find Mrs. Pollifax as a character consistently enjoyable, if not consistently surprising.