Modesty Blaise (Paperback)

"Modesty Blaise" was Peter O'Donnell's first book, published in 1965 when he was 45 years old. Prior to that he had had a long career as the author of scripts for comic strips and writing short stories. In fact, the Modesty Blaise character was first launched as a comic strip in a London newspaper in 1963, so Peter O'Donnell had the background and major story elements well worked out when he wrote this book.

This book became the first book in a series of 11 novels and two collections of short stories about Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin, Modesty's loyal and trusted companion.

In this review I'll concentrate on certain aspects of the book "Modesty Blaise" itself, in the hopes that the reader already has a general knowledge of the whole Modesty Blaise series of books. If this is not the case then you may want to look at my "So You'd Like To" guide at Amazon.com about books by Peter O'Donnell. It includes a link to my MSN group about Modesty Blaise where you can find more information about this whole series of books and why I love them.

In "Modesty Blaise" the basic story is that Modesty, a former criminal, is recruited to the side of the good guys. She and Willie then go up against a ruthless team of bad guys and find themselves captured and scheduled to be killed. In order to survive despite the incredible odds against them they have to fight for their lives, using their fighting skills and their ingenuity.

In this book Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin are introduced to us in a very effective way. In chapters one and two Willie is in serious trouble and Modesty rescues him, the relationship between the two of them made very clear by the way they interact.

Also introduced in this book are Sir Gerald Tarrant, John (Jack) Fraser and Weng, three secondary characters who appear in many of the other books in the series. And we are introduced to Modesty's penthouse apartment overlooking Hyde Park in London and Willie's pub The Treadmill on the bank of the Thames near Maidenhead.

The bad guys in the Modesty books are always very special. In this book the memorable villains are Gabriel (who has a penchant for watching cartoons when he's not sentencing people to death), McWhirter (Scottish henchman who jokes about torture) and Mrs. Fothergill (not too bright or attractive but very good with the unarmed combat). Mrs. Fothergill plays a very special role towards the end of the book - but I can't say how without giving too much away.

This book introduces the special fighting techniques and weapons that are typical for the Modesty books. In particular, we're presented with Modesty's favorite weapon, the kongo, and Willie's throwing knives, plus a couple of unusual weapons invented by Willie.

"Modesty Blaise" is a wonderful book, and a great start to the whole series, and I'm awarding it five stars. If the above information is not enough to convince you, please read my article "Why I love the Modesty Blaise books", which can be found on my MSN group about Modesty Blaise.

In the interests of fairness I'll conclude this review with a few points that I found slightly negative about this book.

The book, at 224 pages, is too short. It's over too soon and you're wishing there was more.

I find some of the things Tarrant and Fraser do to be a tad too silly to be consistent with their positions. Examples: Tarrant complimenting Fraser on his articulation (pg 15), Tarrant expressing relief that a hotel chef has declined leaving his job at the hotel (pg 61), Tarrant worried about being made fun of by Modesty or Willie (pg 70-71 and 128), and Fraser pretending to be angry when talking to Boyd (pg 141).

Finally, in spite of Peter O'Donnell's desire to make Willie an equal to the other characters despite his lower-class background, I detected a condescending tone at times. Examples: "Willie had views" (pg 106), "and to Tarrant's surprise Willie carried his share with ease" (pg 127), "there was no patronage in his manner" (pg 129). (Page numbers refer to the original Souvenir Press edition.)

Highly recommended. Read this book, and if you like it then you'll also like at least the next five or six books in the series. (After that the series declines a bit.)

Rennie Petersen