A widowed matron decides to pursue her lifelong desire to be a spy, finds herself useful to the CIA, and successfully completes an assignment which takes her from New Jersey to Mexico City to Albania.

""If you make it across the border, get us help. Some of us care. Do you understand? ... The arrests grow insane." At the very hour this message is en route to the CIA, Mrs. Pollifax is waiting for her night-blooming cereus flower to do its thing. She hardly gets to see its flowers, though, before being whisked off for another daring mission halfway across the world. Soon she is sporting a beautiful new hat--perfect for hiding eight forged passports."...

"Mrs. Pollifax is sent on a safari to smoke out an international assassin whose next target is the president of Zambia. 'Just take a lot of pictures of everyone on that safari,' the CIA man told her. 'One of them has to be our man.' It sounded simple enough. But it wasn't. Because shortly after she started taking pictures, someone stole her film. And right after that she was kidnapped by Rhodesian terrorists. And right after that--well, read for yourself..."...

"Just recently married, Mrs. Pollifax is persuaded at a moment's notice to travel to Hong Kong on a new mission. There a young agent, Sheng Ti, holds the answers to goings on at the sinister Feng Imports--a one-time agency front. Mrs. Pollifax has earned Sheng's trust, and only she can possibly stop what turns out to be an ominous plot involving drugs, smuggled diamonds, a famous burglar turned Interpol agent, a mysterious psychic, and, of course,...

Mrs. Pollifax is on hand in Morocco to back up an inept CIA agent, and it's a good thing... All she has to do is to masquerade as his aunt while he confirms the identities of seven undercover agents in Morocco--and keep him from making an unpleasant ass of himself. But things quickly go wrong. Their first informant is killed, and Mrs. Pollifax begins to get the idea that her colleague is not who he says he is. Still, she forges ahead, checking out...

The last thing Mrs. Pollifax expects to find in her closet is a young woman hiding. Kadi Hopkirk insists that she is being followed by two men in a dirty white van. Under the cover of darkness, Mrs. Pollifax tries to drive Kadi back home, only to have a dark green sedan give them a run for their money and, she begins to suspect, their lives. Ever resourceful, Mrs. P. puts in a call for help to her CIA colleague, Carstairs, who installs them in a safe...

"Working with her retired CIA friend John Farrell, Mrs. Pollifax must smuggle a manuscript out of Jordan. The document encodes the shocking truth of Saddam Hussein's reign. Yet hardly are the two of them airborne when the coils of Middle Eastern intrigue begin to unwind. Mrs. Pollifax's seat neighbour is not the affable Arab businessman he pretends to be. For Mrs. P. and Farrell to elude their pursuers in such a politically volatile country is no...