Author Paul Gallico attacked the Soviet government with a vengeance – I have to wonder about his own KGB dossier. The attitude to the Russians is totally out of date, as is the Cold War angst, but I remember those days well, so I could understand Mrs.

Mrs Harris Goes To Moscow is the fourth and final in Gallico’s occasional series of books about the adventures of Mrs Ada Harris, a widowed London char woman. I was feeling in the mood for something silly and light, and Gallico’s series is entirely reliable for that. All in all, if you like farce then it's worth giving it a go, but it feels like this is a book whose time has passed. The world of local politics, however, soon proves a test for a lady as straight-laced as Mrs Harris; political skulduggery, the glare of the media and the apparent betrayal of a trusted friend all becoming issues she just hadn't bargained on.By a series of miscommunications, mistaken identities, and misunderstandings of what ‘char lady’ could possibly mean, Mrs Harris and her friend Violet Butterfield (the wonderful Vi, who wants none of the adventures that Mrs H seems to thrive on) are believed to be spies by the KGB and believed to be aristocracy by others high up in Russia. All the clichés are rolled out — a fearsome dezhurnaya (duty woman) stationed outside the lifts on every floor of the hotel, the lack of a Western-style service culture, the rules as to what was and was not allowed of guests. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.

Owen Matthews wrote about his parents’ troubles in this regard in Stalin’s Children (Bloomsbury, 2009)). Harris wins a trip for two to Moscow and hopes to help one of her clients, who is in love with a Russian woman. She agrees, though she knows it could be dangerous for her to carry a letter written in Russian and give it to a Soviet citizen.

Russia in Fiction has no further reason to trouble ourselves with any other of the Mrs Harris novels, but we are not unhappy that we read this one. J. Marsh, Judith O'Reilly, Kelly Clayton, Kim Nash, Leah Mercer, Liz Fenwick, Louise Jensen, Louise Mumford, Malcolm Hollingdrake, Marcia Woolf, Mark Stay, Marcie Steele, Natasha Bache, Nick Jackson, Nick Quantrill, Nicky Black, Patricia Gibney, Rachel Sargeant, Rob Parker, Rob Scragg, S. I continue to be fascinated by the extraordinary range that Gallico has in his writing, from dark to frothy, poignant to funny, and (indeed) very good to not at all good.

This is the first Mrs 'Arris novel that I have read, and the previous comments suggest that it is the least of the series. When your choice of fiction is influenced by where it is set, then you can end up reading novels that you would not otherwise have given a second glance to.The years since first print and change of way of life in UK and Russia have not dimmed the story at all. Mrs Harris wins a trip to Moscow and invites her friend to accompany her which she does reluctantly. Unfortunately, the discreet passing of documents is an activity which can land even the most well-intentioned charlady in hot water with the KGB. Giant red stars gleamed from tower pinnacles, the bulbous tops of the churches were picked out in ultramarine blues and bright yellows. In 1941 he made his name with The Snow Goose, a classic story of Dunkirk which became a worldwide bestseller.