"The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax" by Dorothy Gilman

I found this book, the first of a series, in our county library and thought it looked very promising. I love Agatha Christie's "Miss Marple" mysteries and this looked similar.

Mrs. Pollifax is tired of her life as an old lady. Her children are grown and moved away, and she lives alone, spending her days volunteering at one charity or another. As she slips toward depression, her doctor recommends that she should do something she always wanted to do, but couldn't, because of family responsibilities. But what Mrs. Pollifax has always wanted to be is a spy! She applies for the job, and through a series of hiccups she is accidentally hired by the department as a courier of secret documents from Mexico. It was supposed to be a very safe and very simple mission. But things go wrong through no fault of Mrs. Pollifax, and she soon lands in a most unexpected situation, and performs in a most unexpected way.

The book would have met with my every favorable expectation if not for the unexpected foul language sprinkled generously throughout. Why the author would have made such a move, effectively crossing children off her target audience, is beyond me. And for myself, that's not something I need to exposing myself to more of, (I can't help hearing it in the real world but I can help reading it). I could overlook a word or two but not in this quantity. There is also no reference to God that is not flippant, and are a couple references to "the gods." I am very sorry to bid Mrs. Pollifax farewell forever, because with a few alterations, the Mrs. Pollifax books could have been a new favorite series of mine. The plot was creative, the writing good, and Mrs. Pollifax quite memorable. But all things considered, I cannot recommend this book.