From Publishers Weekly
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.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
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