Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station

 

Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station
read by Barbara Rosenblat
Ashland, OR: Recorded Books, 1990, c1983.

Mrs. Pollifax takes us to a China that was still difficult to visit in 1983, in this story of her assignment to infiltrate a tourist group and contact a Chinese informer, who will give her a vital piece of information that she will then pass on to the "real" agent on the tour. But thankfully for that agent, Mrs. Pollifax is part of this tour, since things go awry and require her inimitable assistance. 

With a mixed group, including two young women who are of great interest to all the middle aged men on the tour, Mrs. Pollifax must try to figure out who her fellow agent is, find a way to leave the tour long enough to find her contact, and then she can wash her hands of events and just continue with the rest of the tour. But one thing that was stressed to her; if anything at all went wrong, she was to get herself and the tour group out of China as quickly as possible. 

With great perspicacity, she does her part. Her habit of talking to and befriending locals and tourists alike serves her well here. And when things do go very unexpectedly south -- when they aren't the only foreign agents in town -- both her karate lessons and her stubbornness help out immensely. 

There were some iffy elements to this one; Mrs. P and her fellow agent dress up as Chinese peasants to do one part of their job, which includes some offensive references to eyes. And as if anyone would believe Mrs. Pollifax was Chinese. But there are also sympathetic Chinese characters and some understanding of the cost of dissent in a Communist country, including a work camp. And the bumbling tourists and their Western attitudes are contrasted with their guides and the people they meet in their various stops, including Kazakh horsemen of the steppes. I liked this one and learned a fair bit, but there sure was a lot of coincidence in the plot here. Still, another interesting tale from Dorothy Gilman!