Five Happy Things
Books with Awesome Older Main Characters
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I’ve been listening to audiobooks lately as I sew, and I recently finished The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax.
I fist encountered Mrs. Pollifax when I was in junior high. Once a week I spent the afternoon with my grandmother and she had a bookcase full of Readers Digest Condensed Books. Does anyone else remember those?
I loved them.
I read tons of them, but the ones I really remember were the Mrs. Pollifax books by Dorothy Gilman. Here’s what the publisher said about them. . .
Mrs. Virgil (Emily) Pollifax of New Brunswick, New Jersey, was a widow with grown, married children. She was tired of attending her Garden Club meetings. She wanted to do something good for her country. So, naturally, she became a CIA agent.
If that premise sounds silly, let me clear things up. These books are not at all silly. They are actual spy novels with terrific plots. They just feature an older main character who people tend to underestimate because of her age.
I recommended them to my husband several years ago when he was doing a lot of driving to visit schools to talk about his books. He loved them so much that he bought every single one of them on audio, but I didn’t listen to them until recently.
You know how sometimes you go back and re-read or re-watch something you loved once upon a time and you find out it’s not nearly as good as you remembered?
That’s not what happened here.
These are even better than I remembered! Mrs. Pollifax is delightful!
Definitely start with The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax. That’s the first book in the series.
To round out the rest of our Five Happy Things, here are four more books that feature awesome older characters.
Of course I have to mention The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman. Four friends in a retirement village in Great Britain meet weekly to solve cold cases - and then find themselves in the thick of current cases. I haven’t read the fourth book in the series yet - I’m saving it for some time when I’m in a reading rut and need a sure thing. The Man Who Died Twice (book #2) is my favorite. The last line is *chef’s kiss* perfect! But you’ll want to start with the first book.
It may be cheating because I haven’t read it yet, but I have to mention a brand new book - in a brand new series - by Richard Osman. It’s called We Solve Murders and it’s about a retired investigator and his daughter-in-law. I’m eager to read it, but I prefer paperbacks and it really is brand new, so I think I’ll be waiting for some time. 🙁 (Don’t be fooled by the paperback you see listed - that’s a large print edition.)
Folly is one of my favorite books by Laurie King. I think I like it even more than her Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes books! The main character is Rae, a 52-year-old master woodworker who was badly injured in a car crash that killed her husband and daughter. She’s attempting to rebuild her life by moving to the San Juan Islands to rebuild a house (by herself!) that belonged to her great uncle. Did I mention that she also suffers from paranoia and depression? So when she feels like someone is watching her, she tells herself it’s all in her head. (Spoiler alert - it isn’t.) I love this book so much! I know I mentioned that she’s building the house by herself, but she does find/build community along the way. Like Legends and Lattes (which I wrote about briefly here), I love books about people who think they are all alone in the world but who find community.
I can’t talk about older main characters without mentioning Miss Marple! I read everything by Agatha Christie when I was a kid, but as an adult I mostly re-read the Poirot books. Out of curiosity I picked up The Murder at the Vicarage (the first Miss Marple book) last week. What fun! And not just because of nostalgia. I did not remember how much humor was in this book! Unlike most mysteries (and maybe later Miss Marple books?) Miss Marple isn’t really the main character. She appears throughout the book, and she does solve the mystery, but the narrator is the vicar and it’s his actions we follow and his head we’re in. And he’s funny! On the very first page I got a good chuckle out of the way he introduced his cook/housekeeper: “Mary, who is in service at the Vicarage as a stepping stone to better things and higher wages.” That dry tone continues throughout and I loved it.
So there you are! Five fun books featuring fantastic main characters of a certain age. 🥰
Enjoy!
Best,
Wendi
❤️
I'm sure you know there is a sequel to Folly Island. Both were great, but I still prefer the Mary Russell books! Can't wait for more of them. I had to pass on the Thursday Murder Club. Everyone else loves them; I can't get into them. I am reading ALL of the Agatha Christie books over several years. Hoopla has many on audio with a fantastic narrator Hugh Fraser. I have not tried Mrs. Pollifax before so just reserved the first one at my library! Definitely remember the Reader's Digest Condensed books!
I love Mrs Pollifax. They were on a reading list when I taught Language Arts in Canada 50 years ago. I also liked Angela Lansbury as Mrs Pollifax in a movie I viewed recently.