Mrs. Pollifax, Innocent Tourist
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Pollifax fans rejoice! The courageous Connecticut matron whose prize-winning geraniums are second only to her dazzling defense maneuvers is back. Hailed an "enchantress" by The New York Times, Mrs. Pollifax is the CIA's most indispensable "bloodhound" and *as to be expected *she's hot on the track, stealthily sniffing out some major skullduggery.
This time she's on loan to her retired CIA friend Farrell. Her bag lady act is the first phase of a mission to the Middle East: to smuggle out of Jordan the final manuscript of the dissident Iraqi novelist, Dib Assen, recently murdered in an Iraqi prison. Allegedly fiction, the script encodes the shocking truth of Saddam Hussein's reign.
Allah willing, Farrell is to rendezvous near Amman with a man called Ibrahim, who will deliver the manuscript. All Mrs. P. has to do is look as much like a tourist as possible to deflect suspicion from her "cousin," Farrell.
But hardly are the two airborne when the coils of Middle Eastern intrigue begin to unwind. Mrs. Pollifax's seatmate is not the affable Arab businessman he seems and the little carved plaque he secretly stashes in her carry-on bag is not a mere souvenir. It is not imagination that persuades Mrs. P. that wherever they go she and Farrell are followed, even to the old castle where Farrell is to meet the mysteriously elusive Ibrahim.
To elude their pursuers in such a politically volatile country isn't easy. But Mrs. P. takes her challenges straight up *and this one may be our genteel heroine's stiffest yet. . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Spunky Emily Pollifax, the occasional CIA operative last seen in Mrs. Pollifax and the Lion Killer (1996), 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. In Amman, she discovers that her airplane seatmate hid a carving in her luggage that contains a mysterious map and key; then her room is searched. Simultaneously, the CIA learns that notorious Jordanian terrorist Suhair Slaman recently sneaked into and out of the U.S. Was he Emily's seatmate? You bet. 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 Amman police Inspector Jafer. The climax occurs at an ancient desert fort, where Mrs. Pollifax fells the villains with karate. Whatever they lack in subtlety, the reliably delightful Mrs. Pollifax stories make up for in charming, intelligent characters, brisk action and seductive scenery. Author tour.
