Dropping everything - Art Association tea, Garden Club film, shopping list - Mrs Pollifax, the intrepid Emily Pollifax from New Brunswick, New Jersey, answers the call of Carstairs of the C.I.A. to act as courier. An agent, Magda Ferenci-Sabo, is missing in Istanbul, and Carstairs needs a courier to contact her.

But this courier must be above suspicion, unknown to the dark world of cross and double-cross in the Turkish capital where every friend is a potential enemy. He or she must have no record, no "profile." Mrs Pollifax fits the bill exactly. The only question left unanswered is: Will Mrs Pollifax do it? Of course she will. What Emily Pollifax begins, Emily Pollifax finishes. Amazing.

Popular author Dorothy Gilman has succeeded at the difficult task of combining charm and humor with excitement and suspense in the adventures of Mrs Pollifax.