A Palm for Mrs. Pollifax

 

A Palm for Mrs. Pollifax / Dorothy Gilman
read by Barbara Rosenblat
Ashland, OR: Blackstone Publishing, 1991, c1973.

As I mentioned in yesterday's review, I've been loving the Mrs. Pollifax series. I had to continue my streak by listening to the next book in the series. This fourth volume has Mrs. Pollifax staying put in one place: a health spa in Switzerland. This is quite a different situation than the wide ranging travels of her first three adventures. It also feels a bit more fanciful, with the inclusion of an imaginary country as the centre of a conspiracy. 

Mrs. Pollifax is once again sent out for an 'easy job' which becomes much more complex. She meets an intriguing cast of characters, none of whom are who they first seem. Being trusting and friendly, she makes many connections, one of them with a young boy who is there with his recuperating grandmother and is very lonely. This boy is also clever and resourceful, which comes in very handy later on. 

I loved the way that the closed room feel of this one allows for some deep character development. And there are some anxious bits mixed in with the humour and lightheartedness, as usual for this series. Mrs. Pollifax finds a gory dead body near the beginning, and later is kidnapped by the villains along with her young friend; they end up (through many twists) touring a castle nearby, in which Mrs. P uses her new karate skills and the two of them evade capture for hours. 

The finale is a bit nail biting, and the moment that saves them is hilariously unlikely but perfect. And once again Mrs. P encounters a helicopter in the closing pages of a story. 

I enjoyed this one greatly, finding the characters memorable, and the outlandishly mustache twirling villains entertaining - I feel that she could let herself go a bit since she'd created an imaginary country and so didn't have to be so careful or exact. Loads of fun, and I definitely recommend the audiobook series as the reader is so good. This is proving to be my series of the year ;)