Mrs. Pollifax (franchise)



""You look like a nice old lady. Really nice. Really kind, sweet, gentle. You are not nice," he added. "Now that," said Mrs. Pollifax, "is one of the nicest complements I've had from a professional.""

- The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax

Emily Pollifax is a widowed mother and grandmother in her 60s living alone in a small but comfortable apartment in New Brunswick, NJ. Her children are grown and now living far away, and she sees her grandchildren only occasionally; her beloved husband Virgil is long dead. Although she fills her days with her garden club and volunteering at a nearby hospital, she finds that her life is devoid of purpose and, well, life. After an incident where save for the intervention of a neighbor she would have calmly thrown herself off the top of her apartment building, Mrs. Pollifax consults a doctor who suggests that she resume interests she had abandoned in favor of being a wife and mother.

Recalling one of her childhood dreams, she travels to Washington DC, where after a visit to her congressman's office she proceeds to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. A letter of introduction provided by the congressman gets her into an interview with an agency functionary, in which she reveals her purpose there: she wants to apply for a job as a spy.

When her flustered interviewer is called away, a different CIA official named Carstairs mistakes her for an existing agent being considered for a simple "milk-run" courier assignment to Mexico City. Impressed with her performance in his own impromptu interview, Carstairs gives Mrs. Pollifax the job. It's not until after she's left the building that he finds out she wasn't who he thought she was, but Carstairs is still so impressed with her that (subject to a background check) he's content with giving her the assignment.

The so-called "milk run", of course, turns out to be anything but. Mrs. Pollifax, though, comes through with aplomb, and transforms the seeming disaster into a spectacular success, resulting in her becoming firmly set on a new career as a part-time spy. Once every year or so Carstairs calls on her to take a job for the CIA which needs her particular combination of sweet old lady and unexpectedly competent agent. And despite the fits of anxiety her adventures subject him to, she never fails to exceed all possible expectations.

Along the way she makes friends from around the world and finds a new love of her life as well.

Mrs. Pollifax is a series of fourteen books written by the late Dorothy Gilman between 1966 and 2000. A mix of Spy Fiction and Mystery Fiction, they expertly blend suspense, thrills and no small amount of comic relief. They span more than three decades starting in the mid-1960s, taking place in a world that is (mostly) identical to ours, except with rare but genuine psychic powers and an Iraq that actually did have weapons of mass destruction after the first Gulf War. Over the course of the series, Mrs. Pollifax's assignments and travel reflect the changing sociopolitical challenges of the world, ranging from Iron Curtain nations and Communist opposition, through African unrest, to Mideast terrorism. Throughout this, one of the constant themes of the series is how Mrs. Pollifax is drawn to help people in need who seem unconnected to her assignments. These either turn out to be unexpectedly related to her task, or become invaluable help in accomplishing it. Another is defying the marginalization and disempowerment of the elderly -- in her sixties, Emily Pollifax is just as capable as, and sometimes more so than, the experienced agents she works with and against.

The novels in the series are:


 * 1) The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax (1966)
 * 2) The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax (1970)
 * 3) The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax (1971)
 * 4) A Palm for Mrs. Pollifax (1973)
 * 5) Mrs. Pollifax on Safari (1976)
 * 6) Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station (1983)
 * 7) Mrs. Pollifax and the Hong Kong Buddha (1985)
 * 8) Mrs. Pollifax and the Golden Triangle (1988)
 * 9) Mrs. Pollifax and the Whirling Dervish (1990)
 * 10) Mrs. Pollifax and the Second Thief (1993)
 * 11) Mrs. Pollifax Pursued (1995)
 * 12) Mrs. Pollifax and the Lion Killer (1996)
 * 13) Mrs. Pollifax, Innocent Tourist (1997)
 * 14) Mrs. Pollifax Unveiled (2000)

There have also been two film adaptations of the first novel:
 * Mrs. Pollifax—Spy (1971), a theatrical film staring Rosalind Russell
 * The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax (1999), a TV Movie starring Angela Lansbury

Note: If/when pages are created for each of the works in the franchise, please move the relevant tropes from here to the new pages. ""Damn it, Emily, only way to keep an eye on you is marry you. Think we could find a quiet corner and talk about that?""
 * Absent-Minded Professor: Dr. Gibbons, a minor character from Mrs. Pollifax and the Lion Killer, is an almost stereotypically absent-minded academic.
 * Abusive Parents: Amanda Pym's parents in the backstory of Mrs. Pollifax Unveiled were emotionally abusive, denying her love and any kind of support or encouragement, and treating her as an unwanted burden which was impoverishing them.
 * The Alcatraz: The Panchevsky Institute in Communist Bulgaria in The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax.
 * Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Near the end of Mrs. Pollifax and the Second Thief, Mrs. Pollifax refers to "people chasing us, shooting at us, and generally being tiresome".
 * Badass Grandma: Mrs. Pollifax, in such a quiet and lowkey way that people are often very surprised when she shows just how badass she is.
 * Bavarian Fire Drill: Mrs. Pollifax isn't bad at whipping these up when she needs them.  They're usually built around her "I'm just an elderly American tourist without a clue" act.
 * Beige Prose: Cyrus Reed's manner of speaking verges on this trope.
 * Blackmail:
 * Mrs. Pollifax blackmails Assen Radev into helping her and the Bulgarian Underground in The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax by withholding the Counterfeit Cash she had unknowingly carried into Bulgaria for him.
 * In A Palm for Mrs. Pollifax, she nominally blackmails Robin into helping her, but it doesn't take long before he's helping her of his own accord. Meanwhile, the sheikh is blackmailing General Parviz by holding his loved ones hostage.
 * Blackmail Is Such an Ugly Word: In The Second Thief, Franca di Assaba prefers "contributions" to "bribes" when discussing the payments she makes to keep Sicilian authorities from interfering in her efforts to support and improve a nearby village.
 * Blasting It Out of Their Hands: At the climax of Mrs. Pollifax Pursued, Kadi uses her Improbable Aiming Skills to shoot a knife out of the hand of a would-be murderer from across a crowded carnival tent.
 * Borrowed Catchphrase: In The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax, Mrs. Pollifax and Colin both echo Sandor's "Wotthehell" at least once each.
 * Bottle Episode/Locked in a Room: Some 70% or so of The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax consists of Mrs. Pollifax and John Farrell (and the occasional false prisoner spying on them) held together in a cell in Cold War-era Albania.  Played with in that Mrs. Pollifax is allowed out of the cell every once in a while, mostly for exercise and bathroom breaks.
 * British Accents: Discussed in-universe by Robin Burke-Jones in the fifth book.
 * Bulungi: Ubangiba, a fictional sub-Saharan African nation appearing in Mrs. Pollifax Pursued and Mrs. Pollifax and the Lion Killer.
 * Bungled Suicide:
 * Mrs. Pollifax's own suicidal tendencies in the earliest part of the first book are thwarted by a neighbor.
 * At the other end of the series, in Mrs. Pollifax Unveiled, Amanda Pym -- feeling that she has nothing to live for -- attempts Suicide by Hijacker, only to accidentally become a hero instead, leading to the rescue of over two hundred hostages.
 * The Caper: Ambrose Vica arranges for Farrell to commit one for him in The Second Thief.
 * Catch Phrase: "Wotthehell" for Sandor in The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax.
 * Central Intelligence Agency: In her first appearance, Mrs. Pollifax (bored with life as a suburban widow) walks into the CIA and applies for a job as a spy.  As it so happened, one particular section head happened to need a previously-unknown courier for a completely-safe milk run...
 * Chase Scene:
 * The last quarter or so of The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax has and his mooks chasing Mrs. Pollifax and.
 * Most of the first third to half of Golden Triangle is an extended chase scene, as Mrs. Pollifax and an ally pursue the men who abducted her husband.
 * The action starts in Mrs. Pollifax and the Second Thief as Mrs. Pollifax, her agency-assigned partner, and a wounded John Sebastian Farrell careen down a Sicilian mountain pursued by three other cars.
 * Chekhov's Gun: It's made clear early on in the series that Carstairs has superiors, but they remain off-screen and unnamed -- until the eighth book, where one of his superiors is given a name, and shortly thereafter turns out to be part of the book's plot.  He's mentioned occasionally in subsequent books, but never again plays a substantial part in a story.
 * Chekhov's Skill: Is practically a theme in the third book.  Everyone Emily is working with turns out to have something they can contribute to the jailbreak from the Panchevsky Institute, and all of these skills and resources get mentioned -- as apparently throwaway details -- well before they become plot points.
 * CIA Evil, FBI Good: The CIA side of this trope is simultaneously averted and invoked.  Her informal superior and his staff are all good people who respect her (and worry about her on missions), and they also go out their way to protect her from some of the less-pleasant parts of the agency.  When certain real-life scandals involving the CIA made their way into the books, Mrs. Pollifax was furious at what some of her colleagues had been up to (while Carstairs protested that it wasn't his group that was responsible).  Meanwhile, FBI agents show up throughout the series, and while their priorities are different from those of the CIA, they are still trustworthy allies clearly on the same side.
 * Cold-Blooded Torture: Emily suffers this at the hands of a Liberation 80's terrorist near the end of Mrs. Pollifax and the Hong Kong Buddha.  Fortunately it was a simple extended beating and not something more sophisticated or invasive.  Still, she comes away from it with scars and no small amount of PTSD.
 * Comic Book Time: The first book was written in 1966, and the last in 2000 -- a span of 34 years -- but Mrs. Pollifax (who starts off in her early sixties) and her supporting cast do not seem to age appreciably during that time.  Actually lampshaded in the fifth book when during a face-to-face meeting both Mrs. Pollifax and Bishop remark on how neither appears to have aged during the years they've known each other.  It gets lampshaded again early in The Second Thief when she insists that Carstairs (who with his WWII experience ought to be at least in his eighties) doesn't look anywhere close to as old as he should.
 * Contrived Coincidence: The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax is one massive knot of coincidental connections between almost all the people Emily meets, starting with her One-Scene Wonder of a seatmate on her flight to Istanbul. Lampshaded by Emily at one point when she muses on the improbability of it all.
 * Amazingly, the coincidences continue nine books later, when late in Mrs. Pollifax Pursued she discovers that.
 * Cool Old Lady: Mrs. Pollifax, to the constant surprise of the young people she encounters -- particularly in the early books, which take place during and shortly after the era of hippies and the youth movement.
 * Corrupt Politician: At least one is involved in the release of Rashad "Aristotle" Bimms in The Second Thief.
 * Counterfeit Cash: Carstairs is forced by his superiors and budget constraints to have Mrs. Pollifax unknowingly carry a considerable amount of counterfeit Russian rubles into Bulgaria in the third book.
 * Courier: Mrs. Pollifax's initial missions for Carstairs are simply to pick up or deliver things for the CIA (although they invariably get far more complicated).  Later she "graduates" to more complex assignments.
 * Crappy Carnival: Averted by Willie's Traveling Show in Mrs. Pollifax Pursued.  Funded by Carstairs' group (AKA "Willie's Rich Uncle"), it's a deliberately second-tier carnival that still does its best to be a good, honest and safe venue for its patrons.  It serves as a kind of mobile "safehouse" for the CIA, among other things.
 * Creator Thumbprint: Like most of Dorothy Gilman's other works, the Mrs. Pollifax books feature a strong woman having adventures around the globe.  And genuine Psychic Powers, however rare, exist and really aren't all that much to comment on.
 * Damsel in Distress: Mrs. Pollifax seems to find herself in this position at least once in every book but always engineers her own escape/rescue, either alone or with the help of a fellow prisoner.
 * One of the few times she doesn't is in Mrs. Pollifax, Innocent Tourist, when the police rescue her and her companions from almost certain death.
 * Dance Party Ending: Well, maybe not dancing, per se, but Mrs. Pollifax delays her return to the United States at the end of The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax because a party is being thrown in her honor.
 * Darker and Edgier: Although none of Mrs. Pollifax's adventures could possibly be described as "fun romps", Mrs. Pollifax and the Hong Kong Buddha is substantially darker in tone and details than the other books in the series, including among other moments Mrs. Pollifax's Cold-Blooded Torture at the hands of a terrorist.
 * Death Seeker: Emily gives every indication of being this in the first few chapters of The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, thanks to being so engulfed in ennui.  She nearly walks off the roof of her apartment building (and has to be stopped from doing so by a neighbor) and even while interviewing for a job as a spy at the CIA emphasizes that her value is her expendability, that she can be sacrificed to save a younger, better-trained agent.  Of course, once she gets a taste of spy work, and discovers she's good at it, these tendencies disappear (and stay disappeared as long as she gets her yearly "fix" of espionage).
 * Double Agent:
 * The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax has two: (although as he notes at one point he is -- or was -- more properly a sleeper agent) and.
 * Engaging Conversation: From Mrs. Pollifax on Safari:

""You look like a nice old lady. Really nice. Really kind, sweet, gentle. You are not nice," he added. "Now that," said Mrs. Pollifax, "is one of the nicest complements I've had from a professional.""
 * Even Evil Has Standards: In The Second Thief, Aristotle the assassin wants to go back to jail because he can't stand the micromanagement of his "process" by the people who got him (involuntarily) pardoned, and because he's disillusioned by his wife's greed and selfishness.
 * Extremely Short Timespan: Mrs. Pollifax's adventures tend to be brief and fast-moving, averaging a week or so; the longest seems to have been about two weeks in duration and the shortest took a weekend.
 * Fainting:
 * Mrs. Pollifax stages a Fake Faint at the climactic confrontation of China Station to give her the chance to attack a KGB agent. Not long afterwards, she slides into a genuine faint, half Emotional, half from the pain of having broken a wrist.
 * Mrs. Pollifax has another genuine faint, mostly from exhaustion, upon reaching the Ahka village in Golden Triangle.
 * Several books later, in Mrs. Pollifax and the Lion Killer, she has a combined Emotional/exhaustion faint in a bicycle shop in Ubangiba, which she blames on still being weak after recovering from a severe bout of flu only a month earlier.
 * In Mrs. Pollifax Pursued suffers an Emotional faint upon having his plans, and the fraud he executed to accomplish them, revealed and thwarted.
 * Mrs. Pollifax faints in the wake of a bullet wound and several severe shocks, all within a few minutes, in Innocent Tourist.
 * Faking the Dead:  in Innocent Tourist.  In an unusual case, his enemies did it for him to save face, having announced his arrest before actually arresting him, giving him time to evade them, and then announcing that they had killed him to explain why they didn't have him in custody.
 * First-Name Basis: Almost exclusively averted for the title character -- even close friends (and the narrative voice) call her "Mrs. Pollifax" (if, like Farrell, they don't have a nickname for her).
 * The first time she explicitly tells someone to call her Emily is a telling moment, as it marks a deepening in the relationship between her and Cyrus Reed, the man who would become her second husband.
 * The second time she does so is several books later at the end of The Second Thief, marking the transition of Franca di Assaba from helpful acquaintance to personal friend.
 * Fortune Teller: Anyeta of the Inglescu Gypsies in The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax chooses to trust Emily based on doing a palm reading.  That said, she appears to be a genuine seer.
 * From Bad to Worse: What usually happens to Mrs. Pollifax's missions, often because of her tendency to Spot and Pull the Thread, or to try to help someone in need.  In the earlier books, her innocence of proper tradecraft would sometimes cause problems as well.  And in some cases her missions go wrong through no fault of her own.
 * From Dress to Dressing: Mrs. Pollifax's bullet wound in Innocent Tourist is bandaged with strips of silk torn from the expensive robes of one of her assailants.
 * The Gadfly: Dickson Zimba in The Lion Killer has set himself up as the most prominent political opponent to soon-to-be-king Sammat, endlessly critizing Sammat's priorities and plans for improving the lot of the people of Ubangiba.  He is so extreme in his opposition that he becomes a very plausible suspect in a series of murders intended to undermine Sammat.
 * Gentleman Thief: Robin Burke-Jones in A Palm for Mrs. Pollifax.
 * Go-Go Dancing: Iris Damson in Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station is a (former) go-go dancer.
 * Good Is Not Nice: Mrs. Pollifax, if pushed far enough.  As Assen Radev, another CIA asset (strongly hinted to be a wetworks expert) says in The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax:


 * Gory Discretion Shot: Mrs. Pollifax and the Hong Kong Buddha has several, most prominently Mrs. Pollifax's torture at the hands of a terrorist.  For the murder of Mr. Detwiler, Emily provides her own discretion shot, by closing her eyes before he is shot by one of the terrorists.  And Gilman ends a chapter just before a gunfight breaks out... then picks up again well after it's over.
 * Gray Eyes: Psychic Albert Hitchens from Mrs. Pollifax and the Hong Kong Buddha has "silver" eyes, the "spiritual" version to go with his psychic abilities.
 * Great Escape: Mrs. Pollifax engineers one for Philip Trenda and several members of a nascent Bulgarian Underground from Communist Bulgaria's Panchevsky Institute in the third book.
 * The Handler: Carstairs and Bishop, for Mrs. Pollifax.
 * Hates Everyone Equally: The assassin Rashad "Aristotle" Bimms seems to have this attitude, and would rather exist (and be left) entirely alone.
 * I Have Brothers: Early in The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, it's described how the 60-something Mrs. Pollifax possessed several skills -- among them gun use -- thanks to a childhood spent in the company of a beloved older brother.
 * I Know Karate: Almost always averted for Mrs. Pollifax, despite eventually having (officially) a brown belt by the middle books in the series.  When she has to resort to them, her karate strikes are always delivered with absolutely no warning.
 * She did casually inform Cyrus that she was "rather good" at karate while they were captured and bound in the fifth book.
 * Improbable Aiming Skills: Kadi Hopkirk is a crack shot with a pistol, thanks to a childhood spent shooting in Africa.
 * In Harm's Way: Near the start of Whirling Dervish, Emily realizes that after nearly a decade of annual adventures for the CIA, she's become an adrenaline junkie and finds she needs her yearly "fix" or she grows bored with life again.  She becomes despondent at the thought that Carstairs might think that she's gotten too old for assignments.
 * In Medias Res: Mrs. Pollifax and the Second Thief opens up on Emily already on a mission, although to be fair she's only been active for a couple hours at that point and hasn't yet been dispatched on the main part of the assignment.
 * Interpol Special Agent: Interpol agents make occasional appearances during her adventures:
 * In A Palm for Mrs. Pollifax, Gentleman Thief Robin Burke-Jones is recruited by Interpol at the end.
 * Robin later reappears as an Interpol agent in Mrs. Pollifax and the Hong King Buddha; unlike the usual fictional agent he has a partner and backup.
 * in Mrs. Pollifax and the Second Thief surprises everyone when he reveals that, while not exactly an Interpol agent, he works closely with them.
 * It Always Rains At Funerals: Mrs. Pollifax and the Second Thief opens on Mrs. Pollifax attending a funeral in the rain.  In the very first sentence of the book she lampshades this trope.
 * It Amused Me: The reason given by the sheikh for basing things out of the Hotel-Clinic Montbrison in A Palm for Mrs. Pollifax, as he was on the clinic's board of directors.
 * Jerkass: Max Janko in Mrs. Pollifax and the Whirling Dervish is a CIA agent so obnoxious that Mrs. Pollifax was explicitly assigned to be his minder, and if necessary, keep him from ruining his own mission with his attitude and arrogance.
 * Joisey: Up until book seven, Mrs. Pollifax lives in New Brunswick, NJ, apparently not too far from the campus of Rutgers University.  (Starting in the seventh book she lives with her new husband Cyrus in a house located in rural Connecticut, not far from Route I-95, somewhere west-southwest of New Haven.)
 * Kiai: Since they tend to be counterproductive when attacking from surprise, Mrs. Pollifax rarely uses them with her karate strikes, but there are a couple times when she employs one to focus her concentration and strength.
 * The Klutz: Iris Damson in Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station.
 * La Résistance:
 * The nascent Bulgarian Underground in the third book. Interestingly, it's not an anti-Communist group, but instead opposes forces within the government that would stage a coup, throwing out true Communism to impose a dictatorship.  Despite this, they appeal to the US for help -- and get Mrs. Pollifax, who gives it to them in spades.
 * Last-Name Basis:
 * Emily Pollifax's first name is rarely used outside of introductions. Even the third-person impersonal narration (including parts that appear to be her Inner Monologue) generally refers to her as "Mrs. Pollifax".  The first time in the series she tells someone to call her Emily is during a deepening of her relationship with a man who would become her second husband.
 * By the tenth book, Carstairs refers to her as "Emily" in private conversations with Bishop.
 * Bishop and Carstairs, although the latter occasionally gets addressed as "Bill". (Bishop apparently doesn't use his first name because it is also William, presumably to avoid confusion with his boss.)
 * Like Reality Unless Noted: Mrs. Pollifax's version of Earth is just like the "real world" except for rare but genuine psychic powers, and the nations of Ubangiba and Zabya.  And Iraq actually had WMDs.
 * Line-of-Sight Name: More properly, a Line-of-Thought Name:  when pressed for a (fake) name to give a woman she's speaking with in book seven, Mrs. Pollifax initially draws a blank, then introduces herself as "Irma Blank".
 * Little Old Lady Investigates: Mrs. Pollifax gets her first actual investigatory assignment in the fourth book, but lack of an official assignment didn't stop her in any of the other books.
 * Book seven, Mrs. Pollifax and the Hong Kong Buddha, reads for most of its length more like a murder mystery than a spy thriller.
 * Similarly, Mrs. Pollifax Pursued revolves around a set of several intersecting mysteries (which all turn out to be facets of the same case), than an espionage plot.
 * Love Hurts:
 * Court van Roelen in A Palm for Mrs. Pollifax is afraid of falling in love again because of past wounds to the heart.
 * Similarly, Lisa Reed in Mrs. Pollifax on Safari is also recovering from a relationship which ended disastrously.
 * Lovely Assistant: Tatiana, to the Professor, in Mrs. Pollifax Pursued.
 * MacGuffin:
 * Played with six ways from Sunday in The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax: The "magic" ring which results in Emily meeting Colin immediately disappears from the story.  The "valuable item" Magda gave the Inglescu to hold for her turns out to be her grandson Dimitri.  And the blue pendant Dimitri wears is explicitly said to contain something in the way of valuable intelligence -- but whatever it is, it's not important to the plot and is basically ignored once commented upon.
 * The titular Hong Kong Buddha in the seventh book.
 * The mysterious item covered with children's clay carried by Kadi in Mrs. Pollifax Pursued.
 * The manuscript of Dib Assen's final book in Mrs. Pollifax, Innocent Tourist.
 * Make It Look Like a Struggle: In The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, the soldier who assists Farrell and Mrs. Pollifax in their escape attempt insists that they tie him up so he won't be suspected, and offers helpful advice on where best to hit him on the head to render him unconscious without doing permanent damage.
 * Martial Arts Uniform: Mrs. Pollifax is occasionally shown wearing a gi and practicing her karate in her living room in the early scenes of her books, before she receives a mission.
 * The Matchmaker: Mrs. Pollifax clearly intends to play the matchmaker for Robin and Court in A Palm for Mrs. Pollifax, but doesn't really get to do much before events sweep her up.  They end up falling for each other anyway.
 * May-December Romance: Farrell (mid-40s) and Kate Rossiter (26, and looks 18) in Mrs. Pollifax and the Second Thief.  Sadly, it doesn't last.
 * Meaningful Name: We are first told that Mrs. Pollifax lives in the "Hemlock" apartments while she is still gripped by ennui and is borderline suicidal.
 * Mighty Whitey:
 * In Mrs. Pollifax Pursued, 's plan is to seize control of the tiny sub-Saharan African nation of Ubangiba and rule it as a personal fiefdom.
 * Subverted in Golden Triangle by the holy man Mrs. Pollifax encounters in the Southeast Asian jungle, whom she recognizes as a long-missing American; while the locals revere him and he has a number of followers, it's not because he has actually done anything other than simply live a quiet life of contemplation in a ruined temple complex.
 * The Mole: Naturally Mrs. Pollifax runs into moles on either side on a regular basis, starting with  in Albania in the first book.  The second book is entirely about rescuing another.
 * Yet another -- -- shows up in Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station, this time for the KGB.
 * More Expendable Than You: One of the reasons Mrs. Pollifax offered her initial interviewer at the CIA for hiring her -- she could be sacrificed to protect a younger, better-trained agent.
 * Multiple Choice Past: Farrell seems to have one, mostly for fun, such as when he describes his parents as flamenco-dancing vaudevillians in Unveiled.
 * Mystery Fiction: No few of Mrs. Pollifax's adventures are better described as mysteries instead of espionage stories, even when she is on a formal mission.  Mrs. Pollifax Pursued is a good example -- she gets involved in several "whodunnits" that are all part of a larger case that has nothing to do with espionage issues, even though it's big enough that Carstairs actually goes into the field to handle its conclusion.
 * Name's the Same: Middle-aged Australian archeologist Amy Madison in Unveiled has nothing at all to do with the young witch from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
 * Never Mess with Granny: Mrs. Pollifax, of course. She is intelligent, observant, levelheaded, good at improvising, and (starting in the second book) knows karate.  In The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax, she manages to repeatedly thwart (and beat up) one of the CIA's nastier Bulgarian assets without knowing who he was -- and then blackmails him into helping her with a jailbreak.
 * Nice Hat: One of Mrs. Pollifax's personal pre-spy trademarks, which she maintains throughout her adventures.  By the third book her CIA contacts start using her hats as part of her equipment.  When they visit her in her apartment to give her a new assignment in the same book and see her without a hat, Bishop gently jokes that he had imagined her wearing her hats everywhere, even to bed.
 * Obfuscating Stupidity: One of the characters in The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax very successfully employs this, to the point that Mrs. Pollifax speculates about mental disability.
 * A local encountered while they are being marched across the veldt in the fifth book is also a bit more than he seems.
 * Older Than They Look: CIA agent Kate Rossiter in Mrs. Pollifax and the Second Thief is 26 but looks no older than 18 or so, in part because of her freckles and ponytail.
 * One Steve Limit: Averted twice:
 * According to different books, Bishop and Carstairs share the first name William. Given that Carstairs' name mysteriously changes to "James" in yet another book, this is likely the result of authorial error.
 * Bulgarian operative Assen Radev in The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax, and Iraqi author Dib Assen in Mrs. Pollifax, Innocent Tourist.
 * Only One Name/Last-Name Basis:
 * Bishop. In Mrs. Pollifax on Safari, we discover his first name is William, but because he shares it with his boss, he almost exclusively goes by his last name -- even in social situations outside of the CIA.
 * Overt Operative: Mrs. Pollifax, much of the time.  This is frequently because, as Carstairs sometimes notes, they don't have time or need to be devious.  And in fact, this is Mrs. Pollifax's strength -- she really is a little old widow from suburban New Jersey who has no "official" connection to the CIA.  It's not even until the fourth book that she gets a cover identity for a mission -- and even then it's only slightly different from the real her.
 * Parasol of Pain: The fancy umbrella Mrs. Pollifax buys at Abercrombie and Fitch for her African safari in Mrs. Pollifax on Safari gets classified as a weapon by the airline and has to be checked as baggage.  Subverted in that despite this, it's never actually used as a weapon.
 * Parental Substitute: Between Mrs. Pollifax Pursued and Mrs. Pollifax and the Lion Killer, Emily and Cyrus effectively become surrogate parents to 19-year-old Kadi Hopkirk, art student and orphan child of murdered missionaries.
 * Part-Time Spy: Mrs. Pollifax.  Although she applied for a job with the CIA, she was never formally hired.  However, one particular section head uses her as a freelancer, whenever he needs someone who is completely off the radar and would never be suspected.  And when he realizes just how competent she is, he graduates her from "simple" courier jobs to actual missions.  But she rarely performs more than one job a year for him.
 * Precision F-Strike: Mrs. Pollifax almost never swears, and doesn't like it when other people do, either.  When she does swear, it's still something relatively mild, such as "hell" or "damn" -- but if she has, things are quite dire indeed.
 * Professional Killer:
 * Dialogue between Bishop and Carstairs early in The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax strongly suggests that Assen Radev is a CIA "wetworks" asset -- and Carstairs doesn't want him anywhere near Emily. Naturally, she ends up blackmailing him into helping her.
 * Rashad "Aristotle" Bimms from Mrs. Pollifax on Safari and Mrs. Pollifax and the Second Thief, professional assassin.
 * Suhair Slaman from Mrs. Pollifax, Innocent Tourist, terrorist/assassin.
 * Psychic Powers: Appear to be a genuine phenomenon in-universe.  Several times in her adventures Mrs. Pollifax meets people who have or claim to have psychic abilities (which all tend toward being some variety of seer, such as clairvoyance or psychometry).  Some have contributed substantially to the success of her missions.
 * Carstairs himself is described as having hunches that are "positively psychic".
 * Qurac: Zabya from A Palm for Mrs. Pollifax, described as one of "those Arabian oil-producing countries".
 * Race Against the Clock: A common element to one degree or another in the books.  Quite prominent and literal in The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax, when she is desperate to get a defecting agent to an airplane flight before it departs.
 * Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The Bulgarian "Underground" in The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax numbers less than a dozen members, ranging from a manual laborer to .  Adding an American teenager to the group to stage a Great Escape just makes it even more ragtag.
 * Ransacked Room:
 * In The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, her room in her Mexico City hotel is thoroughly tossed after she is abducted by enemy agents.
 * In Mrs. Pollifax On Safari, Mrs. Pollifax notes that she packs her suitcase with great care and always in the same way. Because of this, she can pick up the subtle shifts that proved someone had searched it and repacked it, very neatly. (Note that tradecraft makes James Bond and Travis McGee carefully arrange things to alert them if they've been searched -- Emily Pollifax is just a neat elderly lady. But that's the point.)
 * By the eleventh book, Mrs. Pollifax Pursued, she's experienced and skilled enough to leave telltales in place around her house to let her know if someone has broken in and searched it while she was out.
 * In Mrs. Pollifax, Innocent Tourist, she finds her room crudely and hastily tossed, informing her that she's unknowingly carrying something of interest to someone.
 * Reasonable Authority Figure:
 * Carstairs.
 * Mr. Cheng of the Chinese Security Police in book six.
 * Recruiting the Criminal: Interpol recruits Gentleman Thief Robin Burke-Jones at the end of A Palm for Mrs. Pollifax.
 * Recurring Character: John Sebastian Farrell (five books).  Robin Burke-Jones (two books).  Kadi Hopkirk (two books).  Rashad "Aristotle" Bimms (two books).
 * Retired Badass:
 * Bulgarian CIA asset Assen Radev becomes one at the end of The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax.
 * Played with in the case of John Sebastian Farrell from the first book. He retires from the CIA about a year after his adventure with Mrs. Pollifax, but instead of actually going into retirement ends up in Africa helping train and equip Rhodesian freedom fighters.  Several years later he's gone back to running the art gallery he had in Mexico City in the very first book, but he still is doing the odd job on the side.  And a couple years after that, he's starting to make good money as an artist himself.  While still performing the occasional mission for a friend.
 * Roma: A key part of The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax -- the person whom she was sent to aid has a long and friendly association with the Inglescu, a band of Gypsies in Turkey, and Mrs. Pollifax is able to enlist their help (and, indeed, becomes one of their rare gajo friends in the process).
 * Ruritania: Two of the Cold War-era Mrs. Pollifax novels take place in Eastern European Communist nations: Albania in the first book of  the series, and Bulgaria in the third.
 * Sacred Hospitality: Sheikh Jidoor and his family are outraged when Farrell is kidnapped from their encampment in Mrs. Pollifax, Innocent Tourist -- it's a massive violation of Bedouin hospitality traditions.
 * Safecracking: Farrell indulges a couple of times during The Second Thief.
 * Saw a Woman In Half: Kadi is taught how to play a part in the performance of this illusion as part of her cover while hiding in Willie's Traveling Show during the events of Mrs. Pollifax Pursued.
 * Secret Secret Keeper: Iris Dawson for Mrs. Pollifax and Peter Fox in the sixth book.
 * Seers: Anyeta of the Inglescu in The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax seems to be a genuine one, as does Albert Hichens from Hong Kong Buddha and Kamuzo Sharma in Mrs. Pollifax and the Lion Killer.
 * Shoe Phone: Mrs. Pollifax never goes anywhere without a spectacularly Nice Hat -- and in the third book, Carstairs actually uses her hat to smuggle passports into Bulgaria.
 * She also is given other disguised equipment on occasion, such as a Geiger counter hidden within a jewelry box, and a purse and a fancy pendant, both of which are disguised cameras.
 * Spy Fiction: Hovers somewhere between "Martini" and "Stale Beer", but is much closer to "Stale Beer", when it's not actually Mystery Fiction instead.  Mrs. Pollifax's adventures tend to be fairly realistic, although she does pull off a few things that would make James Bond blink in surprise.
 * Spy Speak: Naturally.  Coded messages play a significant role in several books.
 * Emily is given a set of signs and countersigns to identify herself to her contact in Mexico City as part of her first mission in The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax. Actually averted, as she never actually delivers them.
 * Similarly, in The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax, she receives instructions to order a vest at a specific tailor shop in Sofia, Bulgaria, in order to meet with her contact.
 * She's given code phrases to use in messages during the events of A Palm for Mrs. Pollifax.
 * Stage Magic: As part of her therapy after being tortured during the events of Mrs. Pollifax and the Hong Kong Buddha Emily studied prestidigitation under a Stage Magician. The fact that it could be a useful skill for a spy surely never crossed her mind.
 * In Mrs. Pollifax Pursued, her young companion Kadi Hopkirk learns a little of stage illusions while they take refuge in Willie's Traveling Show.
 * Stage Magician: "The Professor" of Willie's Traveling Show in Mrs. Pollifax Pursued.
 * Strongly Worded Letter: According to Bishop near the start of Whirling Dervish, Mrs. Pollifax sent the Department one regarding the Iran-Contra affair.
 * An earlier CIA scandal resulted in a strongly-worded phone call from Mrs. Pollifax, who was unhappy with what another part of the agency had been up to.
 * Suicide by Hijacker: What a depressed Amanda Pym attempts in the backstory of Mrs. Pollifax Unveiled, only to accidentally become a hero.
 * Tempting Fate: Carstairs all but says "What Could Possibly Go Wrong?" when he chooses to send Mrs. Pollifax to Bulgaria in The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax.  Naturally, things go wildly different from what he anticipated.
 * Title Drop:
 * Early in the very first book, Mrs. Pollifax reads an article about an elderly woman who had found a new career as a stage actress, in which the director of her first play described her as "unexpected, but exactly what we needed", and longs to be "unexpected" as well. Later in the book, Carstairs unknowingly describes her as "unexpected".
 * The "X" in any book entitled "Mrs. Pollifax and the X" is a person, place or thing critical to the plot, and will be referenced by name at least a couple times in dialogue and/or the narration.
 * The title drop in Mrs. Pollifax, Innocent Tourist comes in the very first chapter when John Sebastian Farrell tells Carstairs that he needs Mrs. Pollifax to accompany him on a personal mission, as an "innocent tourist".
 * Tomboy: Emily's recollections early in The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax make it pretty clear that as a girl in the 1910s and 1920s she was this, thanks to the influence of a beloved older brother.
 * Took a Level in Badass:
 * Right from the start Mrs. Pollifax is surprisingly badass for an untrained grandmother from New Jersey, but once she starts taking karate lessons she just gets that much more capable.
 * Colin in The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax starts off believing he is the worthless wastrel member of his family, but steps up admirably when circumstances demand it.
 * Torture Always Works: Averted in Mrs. Pollifax and the Hong Kong Buddha. Despite several hours of painful and bloody interrogation at the hands of a terrorist, she apparently gave up absolutely nothing.
 * The Triads and the Tongs: Mentioned, and apparently play a distantly off-stage role, in Mrs. Pollifax and the Hong Kong Buddha.
 * Two Lines, No Waiting: Mrs. Pollifax Pursued starts off this way, with Carstairs pursuing a kidnapping case while Mrs. Pollifax finds herself helping a college student whom she discovers hiding in her house.   Naturally, it turns out they're Working the Same Case, and it quickly becomes obvious to the reader that the two lines will converge -- in Ubangiba.
 * Undercover Cop Reveal:
 * Klutzy former go-go dancer Iris reveals to Emily at the end of Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station that she had served as an undercover agent for the police while still a dancer, and as such had some formal training and experience in noticing details... and while she didn't know exactly who Mrs. Pollifax and her partner worked for, realized she was watching American agents at work. And gave a little help here and there where she could.
 * Unfortunate Names: Mrs. Pollifax is clearly of the opinion that this applies to the dangerous assassin codenamed "Aristotle" when in The Second Thief she learns his real name is Rashad Bimms.
 * Universal Driver's License: In The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax, Mrs. Pollifax manages to pilot a helicopter -- one of the most difficult and unintuitive aircraft to fly -- if not expertly, at least well enough to win a Race Against the Clock -- even though she has no flying experience at all. Acknowledged and lampshaded by Gilman 27 years later when Mrs. Pollifax climbs into the pilot's seat of a helicopter for the second time in Mrs. Pollifax, Innocent Tourist.
 * Wannabe Secret Agent: Averted with Mrs. Pollifax.  Although she decides to become a spy to alleviate the ennui of her life, she doesn't go about building a fantasy of spycraft around herself -- she goes right to the CIA to apply for a job as a spy.  And gets it.  Then turns out to be spectacularly good at it.
 * We Have to Get the Bullet Out: In The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, Mrs. Pollifax performs crude field surgery on fellow agent Farrell in an Albanian jail cell, to extract a bullet he took during an unsuccessful escape attempt.
 * Working the Same Case:
 * Mrs. Pollifax and Robin Burke-Jones quickly figure out that they're looking into the same affair from two different angles in Mrs. Pollifax and the Hong Kong Buddha, and immediately team up.
 * Carstairs' growing obsession with the kidnapping of Henry Bidwell and Mrs. Pollifax's efforts to protect college student Kadi Hopkirk in Mrs. Pollifax Pursued intersect in the African nation of Ubangiba.
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: And orange, and purple... Franca di Assaba in Second Thief buys and dyes platinum wigs so she can change her hair color on a daily basis as one way of dealing with a growing boredom with her life.
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Cited by Carstairs, although not exactly by name, to describe the fate of the two thugs in the Chigi Scap [sic] Metal van in Mrs. Pollifax Pursued.
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Cited by Carstairs, although not exactly by name, to describe the fate of the two thugs in the Chigi Scap [sic] Metal van in Mrs. Pollifax Pursued.