Reviews for Mrs. pollifax and the whirling dervish Mrs. pollifax series, book 9. [electronic resource] :

School Library Journal
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Carstairs' right hunch for the wrong reason provides the occasion for Mrs. Pollifax's journey to Morocco as Ajax agent disguised as aunt and traveling companion to Max Janko. Keen observation and quick thinking enable her to capitalize on opportunity as she speeds across the barren landscape, one step ahead of her assailants. Breakneck adventure and suspense are enhanced by insight into eastern culture and characters. This fast-paced armchair excursion into the exotic world of North Africa is equally entertaining for first-time readers of Mrs. Pollifax and her long-time fans. This may be one of the few books reluctant readers will actually finish. --Barbara Hawkins, West Potomac High School, Fairfax, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.


Publishers Weekly
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This spirited mystery, the ninth featuring garden club matron and part-time secret agent Emily Pollifax shows the kindly grandmother at her steel-edged and resourceful best. Her superiors in the Atlas Group (an unofficial branch of the CIA) have dispatched Emily to Morocco to provide a cover for another of their agents, Max Janko. Emily will pose as Max's aunt to make the pair look like tourists, while in reality they will be trying to identify all seven agents in order to ferret out the mole who has recently infiltrated the Atlas network. Anticipating a relatively serene journey through picturesque Moroccan villages with an agreeable companion, Emily is dismayed to find Janko insufferably hostile. Worse, he intends to kill her. By the time the real Janko shows up, a murder has occurred, and Emily and her inexperienced companion are running for their lives from one dusty hamlet to the next, desperately trying to find the informer and save the rest of the network. Gilman's latest is well crafted, richly detailed and eminently suspenseful. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved


Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Intrepid Emily Pollifax, heroine of several daring forays in the service of the CIA (Mrs. Pollifax and the Golden Triangle, etc.), is showing her age in this new mission, which has sent her to Morocco. There, Emily is to meet hastily recruited, arrogant, Arabic-speaking Max Janko, to provide window-dressing and a softening presence as they travel the length of the country, checking the identities of seven undercover agents with photographs supplied by the agency--which has learned that one of the seven has been replaced by an enemy spy. The first of their quarry is readily found and identified--then stabbed to death soon after, when Emily realizes not only that Janko himself is an impostor but also that her own life is at risk. Her rescue, by the real Janko, and their travels through mountain and desert; in and out of native dress; in and oat of decrepit vehicles--always pursued; sometimes assisted--should be tense and exciting But except for a brief episode involving Ahmad, a clever nine-year-old, they're not. Descriptions of the Moroccan scene are some help, but they, too, become repetitive and eventually share the hackneyed feel of the action. Despite the CIA's anxieties, a sense of urgency is missing here, and the reader is left to wonder--was this trip necessary? Copyright ŠKirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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