Jessica Fletcher, lecturing at a writers' conference, finds herself called on to solve the killing of a guest speaker, an arrogant Russian author who'd written a nonfiction, tell-all book about his tenure as head of the KGB.
When her doctor recommends that a widow pursue her unfulfilled life ambitions, he doesn't realize that she has always wanted to be a spy. Sending a letter to her congressman gets her an interview with the CIA and accidentally gets her an assignment to Morocco for a supposed easy task of picking up an encrypted code book. When the agency realizes their mistake, they send a super-agent to watch over her. Both are taken prisoner and the real agent is injured, leaving Mrs. Pollifax to use her considerable wits to help them escape and to save the day.