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The Night of Morningstar: Modesty Blaise
 
 
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The Night of Morningstar: Modesty Blaise (Paperback)

by Peter O'Donnell (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
RRP: £8.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 280 pages
  • Publisher: Souvenir Press Ltd; New Ed edition (20 Sep 2001)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0285636154
  • ISBN-13: 978-0285636156
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 264,024 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #21 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > O > O'Donnell, Peter

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Product Description

Review

Before Buffy, before Charlie s Angels, before Purdy and Emma Peel there was Modesty Blaise. --'The Observer'

These books are the finest escapist thrillers ever written. --'The Times'

The stories of Modesty... are better than James Bond and funnier. --'Tribune'


Product Description

Modesty Blaise is about to retire from her criminal emoire, the Network. But there is one final, astounding mission before she can leave. Years later the consequences of this final mission come back when she is drawn into conflict with a mysterious group called the Watchmen. What is the plan to destroy the Western world being orchestrated by the Watchmen?
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Modesty Blaise versus World Domination!, 12 Oct 2001
By A Customer
Another page-turner in the Modesty Blaise series! This one is the 11th book, first published 1982, and there is a definite change from the earlier, 1960's books!

Again we are given the excitement of blasts-from-her-past, villains with a grudge, hired killers and evil master plans! Assassins are set on Modesty Blaise, and she is drawn into conflict with the mysterious group, the Watchmen. However, in this book, the "Evil Genius" master plan is on a much larger scale than gold or diamonds; the Watchmen are set to take over the World! They are going to to assassinate the leaders of several Western countries and throw the world into conflict, then place their own leaders in charge!

Usually Modesty and her sidekick Willie are on familiar terrain; Europe, the Mediterranean; Northern Africa. This book is particularly interesting as it also brings then to the United States, where the Watchmen are also set to blow up the Golden Gate Bridge!

O'Donnell is a master of the how-will-they-get-out-of-this-situation plot.
Hilarious yet exciting; who cannot love the parts where they fahion their own weapons from household parts to forge their escape? And it does keep the reader hanging on, wondering how they're going to manage it this time...

Tough, fast, action-pasted and enjoyable!

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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Again Modesty and Willie save the day!, 17 Oct 2001
By Olivia Curtis (Wimborne, Dorset United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
I have loved all of the Modesty Blaise books that I have had the good fortune to have found so I was extremely pleased when I received this newest one in the post!

The Night of the Morningstar is a fantastic book and contains all of the suspense and action that make these books so good! However, in this particular one, Willie Garvin plays a much more central role and the reader can get a better perspective of Modesty's greatest friend.

I would recommend this book to anyone who has enjoyed James Bond books or anything similar. It is a fantastic action book and will keep you in suspense until you have finished the last word. The characters are brilliant and having read quite a few of the books, I feel like I know the regular characters, such as Dinah and Steve Collier and Sir Gerald Tarrent, very well.

Read as many of these as you can get your hands on but I suggest you read them in order - characters and references follow through the entire series!

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars "Now I am top man with you in The Network and I have enough money to last me three lifetimes.", 24 Sep 2007
By Rennie Petersen (Copenhagen, Denmark) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
"The Night of Morningstar" (1982) should have been a great Modesty Blaise book, but unfortunately it disappoints. The excitement and danger of the first books in the Modesty series is sadly missing. It's almost as if Modesty and Willie Garvin (Modesty's loyal sidekick) are just going through the motions.

The reason I say that "The Night of Morningstar" should have been a great book is because Peter O'Donnell created a very exciting scenario and some fairly believable and nasty bad guys. A terrorist group called "The Watchmen" has appeared out of nowhere and is staging serious attacks, for example killing the entire Turkish Embassy staff in Madrid, wrecking a French nuclear power plant, blowing up a dam in Utah, and many other seemingly unrelated actions. Then The Watchmen target the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and then they target the President of the United States and three other heads of state at a world summit meeting. Serious stuff.

The Watchmen is a multinational group of highly trained mercenaries, and we are introduced to their top leaders. This includes Major the Earl St. Maur, formerly leader of a British Marine Commando battalion, and Colonel Golitsyn of the Russian GRU. These are the kind of men who can talk about destroying the Golden Gate Bridge or killing the President of the United States and you believe that they are actually capable of making these things happen.

With opponents like these and the major conflicts they are brewing up we should have gotten a fine Modesty adventure, somewhat reminiscent of "Sabre-Tooth" (1966).

So why did the story fall flat? Let me count the ways...

The biggest problem is that it seems as if Peter O'Donnell's writing style had softened. During the first six books in the Modesty series he described the fights with such forcefulness that we were really afraid about the possible outcome. Not so in "The Night of Morningstar". There's no longer the crackling tension, and we're never really worried about the bad guys prevailing.

It's not just the fight scenes but also the whole tone of the story that is no longer as tough as in the first books. In particular, there are a couple of silly scenes presenting gratuitous posturing and name-calling directed at Modesty, one scene involving a CIA leader and one involving a supposedly cold-blooded mercenary. The really tough guys and professionals don't descend to name-calling.

A final problem is that there is too much participation by members of "the Modesty family", the secondary characters who make repeat appearances in many of the Modesty books. I find it especially irritating that Stephen Collier, one of my least favorite members of this group, gets involved no less than three times.

Despite the above criticism I'm still giving this book three stars. After all, it is a Modesty Blaise story, and it has all the standard ingredients that make the whole Modesty series so good. This includes the intelligent and humorous tone and the inventiveness shown by Modesty and Willie.

Another positive aspect is the theme of international high-powered terrorism that has become a very real threat in the modern world. Peter O'Donnell was showing great perception in creating a plot like this back in 1982.

The best part of "The Night of Morningstar" is actually the first two chapters. Here we are presented with a flashback to a caper from the last days of The Network, the criminal organization that Modesty ran before she retired from crime. This story casts additional light on what Modesty and Willie did in "the good old days", and their unique relationship.

It's especially nice to see Modesty first in the role of ruthless and dispassionate leader of a major organization, and then seeing her switch easily to doing a dirty and dangerous job of infiltration all by herself. That's the Modesty we love.

The quote at the top of this review, "Now I am top man with you in The Network and I have enough money to last me three lifetimes" (page 6), is said by Garcia, Modesty's third in command. He's talking to Willie Garvin who is second in command in The Network. Pure nostalgia for us Modesty fans.

Despite my disappointment I'm recommending this book and giving it three stars. But do yourself a favor and start reading the Modesty books from the start of the series. The first six books are the best, and several of them are among the best thrillers I've ever read.

Rennie Petersen
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