The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax

The Mrs Pollifax stories are favorites of mine and I was delighted to be offered this one at a good price. The transition to digital was done well, no editing errors that I noticed! Recommended as a good, fun read!

The books in this series are suitable for adults as well as younger readers. Set in the era of the Cold War, follow the adventures of a 60 something year old new American spy. Also very educational about the countries she visits.

The Mrs. Pollifax series is well written and always keeps you guessing. A delightful series of books. I wish they would make the second half of the books available to kindle readers. They have them on audio, but, I prefer to read them.

The concept of someone walking in and saying they wanted to be a spy is a great start To then have this elderly woman abducted, drugged, put in unfamiliar circumstances... very entertaining and full of surprises. I loved it

I love the underlying concept that life does not end with age. I read her stories many years ago and they inspired me to step out of my comfort zone. I have now been to or lived in Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Philippines and lived on an Indian reservation.

The characters are quite colorful. I liked the humanity each of them demonstrated in their relationship with the heroine. Not much reality in the story regarding Mrs Pollifax, but as with Miss Marple,reality is not the point, entertainment is, and that is done well.

Mrs. Pollifax books take an innocent-looking older woman through improbably exotic adventures to foreign lands. This is the start of the whole wonderful, madcap series of adventures and found friends. I learn something about a different culture in every book. I get a few chortles and a belly laugh somewhere along the way. And, I am made happier by reading this book and others in the series. There is just a wonderful sense of possibility and hope, no matter how difficult the situation, and that stays with me after I turn the last page. Why shouldn't an elderly woman walk into the CIA HQ and volunteer as a spy?

Mrs. Pollifax and her unique adventures as a unexpected courier for the CIA are well worth the read to see just how this older completely inexperienced woman, in the ways of espionage, deals with the way the original plan suddenly goes quite sideways. There are some somewhat funny lines and most of the characters are fairly palatable. Only the main villain of the piece, General Perdido, is really unlikable. (But even his name is a pun of a sort for those who know Spanish as it translates to. General Danger. )
One bad thing about the book is the odd lettering at the start of each chapter. I think the publisher or author may have been trying to emulate Aztec or Mayan glyphs, but all it does on a Kindle is make it hard to see what those letters really are. In the end, I guessed a few times based off the context of the sentence and am not sure if anyone else will have the same issue or not.

I am so happy to have discovered the Mrs. Pollifax series. I was so caught up in the adventure I couldn’t put the book down until I learned how it turned out. This was the first of the series that I had read and now I’m looking forward to more of her stories.

I fell in love with the Mrs. Pollifax books years ago. For a long time they were not available on Kindle, which was sad for me because I love to keep copies of my favorite books on my Kindle to be read at any time. Now I have almost all of them.

Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax - the first in a series - gives the reader an introduction to an amazing woman who becomes a treasure and a delight to ALMOST everyone she meets... The story starts with her decision to present herself to the CIA as a potential spy after a visit to the doctor (and a few other factors) convinces her it is time to try and act on her childhood dream of being a CIA spy. Through a series of mishaps she ends up on her first courier job for the CIA - in Mexico! Well, the common thread with all of the Mrs. Pollifax books is that as with life, nothing ever works out precisely as planned, but with surprising élan and style she rises to the occasion with unexpected results.

The Mrs. Pollifax books are fast, enjoyable reads that make you root for her and anyone "on her side". It is helpful to read them in order, since they do build on the prior stories to a certain extent, but they are all wonderful stand-alone novels as well. They lift my spirits and make me wish I had Mrs. Pollifax as a friend. I hope you enjoy her adventures as well.

This series is great... I have them all in paperback
& now am planning on getting the series on my
Kindle.. They are worth re-reading. If you have
Not read any Dorothy Gilman, you are in for a
Treat.. (And laugh along the way)

You just never know where the government will send mrs. Polifax and I dream that I go with her to all these exciting places and help conquer the enemy. It makes me feel young again and not useless. My aches and pains disappear
When I am on an adventure with her. Thank you.

Mrs. Polifax is a delightful lady whose second career is a spy for the CIA. This is the first in a long line of adventurers. Each book stands by itself but if you read them in order it is more interesting.

Love love love the Mrs. Pollifax books. Well written and unexpected. I've read them all. Only drawback to this book is that the print is REALLY small. Was going to give it to my grandpa, but there's no way he'll be able to read this.

Love love love the Mrs. Pollifax books. Well written and unexpected. I've read them all. Only drawback to this book is that the print is REALLY small. Was going to give it to my grandpa, but there's no way he'll be able to read this.

I only recently discovered the Mrs. Pollifax series and have bought all of them. These are mysteries that make me laugh out loud!! I only wish that more of the books were available on Kindle. The paperbacks occasionally have such small print that they are hard to read. Wonderful, wonderful series!

I liked the honesty of the description of boredom with aging and the surprise of Mrs. Pollifax's choice to be a spy for excitement. I liked the coincidental way she became a spy by mistaken identity and the cleverness with which she and Farrell and the Genie escaped, especially with the help of the goatherds.