I recently dollar-picked up a paperback reissue of the first of PeterO'Donnell's novels based upon his MODESTY BLAISE newspaper strip.
The strip ran many years ~ but barely in the good ol 'U.S.A.
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I finished the third book in the series recently. I like the comic strip more, but comics collections are expensive. That's the trouble with loving comics.
...I suppose an editorial decision was made to expand the header of this ~ I had time only for the basics when I finally got this up , and I think you'll see I DID get some up:-)............Modesty is an , originally Middle Eastern Displaced Person/" stateless " orphan of the post-World War II years who fought her way up to the top through everything she could , including " good " criminality (No drugs or sex trade) ~ and eventually made her way up enough in the world , and did enough things for the British government to be granted permanent U.K. citizenship having become independently wealthy along the way , which is more or less the story of her dedicated non-sexual friend & assistant , Willie Garvin , except that he was born a UK citizen .
Frankly , I rather , choose anyway , to see the implication that Modesty , who does not look very Middle Eastern and is shown to be pretty light-skinned in the comic , is the illegitimate daughter of a British soldier or diplomat , explaining her being drawn to U.K. culture and life .
Out of boredom with conventional settled-own life , and gratitude to the UK and interest , she and Willie do missions for ~ I suppose it is not stated ? ~ MI6 , or , anyway , the U.K.'s spy service .
A few years ago I picked up a collection "The Mammoth Book of Short Spy Stories" that included a Modesty Blaise tale. I found it to be one of the more entertaining entries of the anthology - light hearted but still exciting.
...In what I've read yet of the novel , Modesty and Willie show themselves to be willing ~ when justified ~ and efficient killers of baddies...
In the 90s , DC issued a graphic novel adaptation of this very novel in the prose series ~ which was published direct to TPB , I recall it , not being issued in a standard serialized comic book mini first ~ Probably because DC anticipated it not doing so well in that format and thus Mafia-dip-off-the East River hurting the book's chances ~ It seemed to be selling for a bit OOP at Amazon , as a listing it appeared to be conflated with the reviews for the prose Modesty novel it adapted .
The novel has some interesting examples of different Brit spellings/useage for the same?? thing that I suppose may have passed a bit out of U.K. usage since 1965?? (BTW , the " plates "/typography for the book look like they'd have been the 1965 typography exactly reproduced , not reset ~ " Plates " and " reset " are themselves archaic now , I guess , but anyway .) ~ The Cmdr. , with what I believe he has admitted is his (Sometimes shared by me !) fondness for sommewhat " old-fashioned " British English usages might appreciate - " Pent house " as two words , liquid beverag " coke " not capitalized , " kerb " on either side of a paved street , and I suppose a " wind cheater " (Two words ?????) is a " windbreaker " here ? No " annexe " yet however...
...I saw Hammer's VENGANCE OF SHE to-day (I am in a hospital now which gets TCM ~ FoxMoviesd , too , which is split 50/50 into aan all-retro service that wa once known as Fox Movie Channel from 12 midnight noon (EST anyway) and a modern films-oriented schedule the other half of the day basically running what also runs onFXM) , from the 60s , and Peter O'Donell was the screenwriter ~ And it also featured a " dolly bird " female central character in adventures , and involved rather pul-y " Arab " types ~ whofigure in the Modesty novel ~ too !!!!!!!!!!!
I read the first twelve Modesty Blaise books in the 70's and early 80's, but never got around to reading "Cobra Trap" unto 2010. I had no idea it contained the last MB story-such a bittersweet read.