Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Too Much of a Good Thing?

I, Lucifer by Peter O'Donnell

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Out of all the Modesty Blaise books, I, Lucifer is my least favorite, and I can’t pin down exactly why. It might be my Victorian prudishness dealing with the adventure having three of her lovers in one story. She’s always been nonchalant about her partners, leaving them friends when she departs, but two of the three aren’t quite so easy-going as she is, and she has to remind them of who owns her body and who decides what she does with it. We have the […]

A Change to the Modesty Blaise Formula

Dragon’s Claw by Peter O’Donnell

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In almost every Modesty Blaise pulp fiction novel, there’s a thriller formula. Usually, a nefarious and colorful megalomaniac is trying to take over the world/kill everyone/overturn countries and needs some hapless but genius schmo to accomplish a key task in their plan. Modesty and her hunky partner, Willie Garvin, encounter the poor guy and save him. Then, they go after the mastermind to ensure the victim is safe and bring the villain to justice. Modesty generally takes the schmuck to bed during the healing and […]

A Change to the Modesty Blaise Formula

Dragon’s Claw by Peter O’Donnell

by Leave a Comment

In almost every Modesty Blaise pulp fiction novel, there’s a simple thriller formula. Usually, a nefarious and colorful megalomaniac is trying to take over the world/kill everyone/overturn countries and needs some hapless schmo to accomplish a key task in their plan. Modesty and her hunky partner, Willie Garvin, encounter the poor victim and save him. Then, they go after the mastermind to ensure their new friend is safe and bring the villain to justice. Modesty generally takes the schmuck to bed during the healing and […]

I Should Reread These Modesty Blaise Books in Order

A Taste for Death by Peter O'Donnell

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I enjoy rereading all the Modesty Blaise novels, but two of the characters who fall in love in this book were an old married couple in the last one. While the exploits of Modesty and her partner, Willie Garvin, are exciting, this has one of the best fight scenes in all the Modesty novels. In fact, she has a scary encounter with a swordsman AND Willie meets up with a gorilla-like sadist who had battered him almost to the death during a previous encounter. Stuck […]

Like a Warm Blanket

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I, Lucifer by Peter O’Donnell (1967) – Some books are comfort food.  I grab them when I don’t want to read anything complicated.  The Modesty Blaise books by Peter O’Donnell are fine examples and sit on a convenient shelf in my library.  I have them all (thirteen novels but none of the comic strips), and they are a little formulaic but definitely re-readable. Modesty, if you didn’t happen to see several of the really bad movies made about her, is basically James Bond with décolletage.  […]



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