Dorothy Gilman

Hab von dem Buch nichts Besonderes erwartet, einen durchschnittlichen Kriminalroman halt - ich hab mich aber getäuscht! Gut geschrieben, interessante Geschichte aus dem Blickwinkel einer interessanten Figur erzählt, mit Spannung und Romantik, und ich weiß nicht was noch, aber das Buch hat mich fasziniert.

Bill Carstairs, CIA, needs one of the experienced freelancers to travel to Mexico as an unsuspicious tourist and pick up a book containing important information – a simple courier job.

Emily Polifax, New Brunswick, is a widow, mother of two grown-up children, grandmother of three, volunteer worker – but she feels useless lately. After some uneasy moments at the edge of the roof of here apartment building where she had carried her beloved geraniums, she remembers that since childhood, she had always wanted to be a spy. So she sets out to Langley to apply, accidentally running into a sort of “casting” for said courier job.

I read this as a translation to German a couple of years ago, and now listened to it as an audio book. Still love this a lot – you cannot help but smile a lot about the dry sense of humor: like when the doctor asks here whether she really likes all of her volunteer work “Actually, I suppose I loathe it. …. nothing more is needed for volunteere job thant a good set of teeth”. Teeth. For smiling, you know?

Join Mrs. Pollifax excitedly travelling to Mexico, watch out for the bookshop, and its owner, meet enemy communist spies, and embark to yet another foreign country, where Mrs. Pollifax does not find only her life at threat.

The mix for the protagonist is somewhat in between Miss Marple, the look of the book-Marple, combined with the audacity of the Margaret Rutherford one, and some cross with the 80’s series “Scarecrow and Mrs King”. The setting is in the 60’s. Bill Carstairs had been OSS trained, hence in WWII, and John Sebastian “Johnny” Farrell joined the CIA in 1947. The microfilm the whole adventure is about rather turns out to be a veritable McGuffin, though. Who cares? All of the books capitalize the mélange of suspense with comic relief, Mrs. Polifax’s weird hats with flowers upon, her naivete combined with curiosity and bluntness, and how she inevitably will take and interest with somebody who will end up involved with her topical “mission”.

The title, by the way, derives from a newspaper article about a woman who had started a new career as an actress at 63, claiming “there is a dearth of sixty-three-year old actresses. They needed me – I was unexpected.” p. 19

Mrs. Emily Pollifax. Widowed, apartment 4-A in New Brunswick, New Jersey
her neighbor Miss Grace Hartshorne of 4-C
her son Roger, Chicago, married, one child
her daughter Jane, Mrs. Conrad Kempf, Arizona, two children
her cousin John. Experienced user of weapons

Mr. Jasper Mason, CIA
Bill Carstairs, CIA
Bishop, his secretary
Higgins. CIA, responsible for “personnel”
Miss Webster. Volunteer

Tirpak. Working for the CIA in South America.
John Sebastion “Johnny” Farrell. The CIA’s man in Mexico

Mr. DeGamez, bookshop owner
General Raoul Perdido
Major Vassovic
General Hoong
Lulash
Colonel Adhem Nexdhet
guard Stefan

Lady Caressa Teal schreibt für ihre Enkelin die abenteuerliche Geschichte ihres Lebens auf:
Das Zirkusmädchen Caressa heiratet den alternden Afrikaforscher, Dr. Bowman und bereist mit ihm die Sahara. Sie überlebt als einzige den Überfall kriegerischer Tuaregs und wird von ihnen gefangen gehalten, aber ihr gelingt die Flucht. Caressa erlebt die Sahara in all ihrer Hässlichkeit, ihrer lebensbedrohenden Gefahren, aber auch in ihrer Schönheit und sie begegnet dem Abenteurer Jared. Er ist die Liebe ihres Lebens. Sie verspricht auf ihn zu warten, doch sie wartet vergeblich ...
Ein wundervoller kleiner Roman, der mich atemlos, zu Tränen gerührt, aber auch lächelnd zurückgelassen hat.