G for Gilman and Grimes

This week´s ABC meme is for Cozy Crime.

American writer Dorothy Gilman & Mrs Pollifax
Have you met Emily Pollifax, New Brunswick, New Jersey? This heroine is a widow who is so tired of gardening and cookie baking that she hunts up CIA and asks for a job in the spy business. By mistake she is sent on her first mission as a courier to Mexico City. Things do not go quite as expected, and suddenly the sprightly sexagenarian is in great danger.

If you like humour and cozies, this series should be up your alley.


American writer Martha Grimes & Jury and Plant.
Like Elizabeth George, this American author uses a British setting for her series about Superintendent Richard Jury and his little helper, the nobleman Melrose Plant (who tries to run away from his title). The novels usually (always?) take place in an isolated village with an atmospheric inn.

If you like your sleuth noble and your environment remote and old-worldly, this series is quite entertaining. Perhaps you shouldn´t read too many of them in rapid succession, however.