Books in series
#1
Modesty Blaise
1965
In her first adventure for British Intelligence Modesty Blaise with her loyal lieutenant, Willie Garvin, must foil a multi\-million pound diamond heist. They travel from London to the South of France, across the Mediterranean to Cairo before battling, against impossible odds, a private army of professional killers.
#2
Sabre-Tooth
1966
In the second installment of Peter O'Donnell's best-selling Modesty Blaise series, Karz, a modern day Genghis Khan with an army of ruthless mercenaries, plans to take over oil-rich Kuwait. It is left to Modesty Blaise and her loyal lieutenant, Willie Garvin, to investigate Karz before an epic battle takes place in the Hindu Kush mountains. Modesty must fight alone to prevent an invasion that will change the world.
#3
I, Lucifer
1967
Lucifer, a paranoid young man, believes that he is Satan and has a remarkable psychic ability to predict death by natural causes. Lucifer's ability is used by Seff's gang to extract ransom from their rich victims. Seff selects the victims and warns them of their impending death; any who do not pay the ransom seemingly dies from natural causes, helped on their way by Seff's executioner, Jack Wish.
By what means are the victims being killed? How is the ransom money being collected without trace from under the sea?
Modesty's friend, Steve Collier, the renowned psychic researcher, is kidnapped to help Seff but he accidentally blows Modesty's cover as she investigates this mystery. Taken prisoner, Modesty and her faithful lieutenant, Willie Garvin, must escape Seff's island stronghold in the third installment of Peter O'Donnell's best-selling Modesty Blaise series.
#4
A Taste for Death
1969
The rugged team of Modesty Blaise and her loyal lieutenant, Willie Garvin, take on impossible odds as they battle Simon Delicta, a man with a taste for death, and Swordmaster Wenczel in a duel to the death. As the adventure unfolds, and they travel from London to Panama to the depths of the Sahara desert, the pair will need all their killing skills to survive.
#5
The Impossible Virgin
1973
Modesty Blaise's friend Novak died trying to preserve his discovery of the Impossible Virgin, a secret that meant enormous wealth. But right at the last moment, he babbled. When Modesty makes a forced landing in Central Africa, she meets the man who possesses Novikov's secret without knowing it—Giles Pennyfeather, the guileless and blundering young doctor with a gift for healing. In saving Giles from Brunel, a dangerous killer, she buys yet another ticket to danger, for Brunel is determined to have the secret. Modesty and her lieutenant, Willie Garvin, take on Brunel and his partners in a fierce and devious battle, where Modesty is brought to the most shattering reverse she has ever suffered. How she fights back, and at last learns the truth of the Impossible Virgin and her ferocious guardians, brings this fifth tale in the saga of Modesty Blaise to an astonishing climax.
#6
Pieces of Modesty
1972
Six short stories featuring Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin.
Contents:
A Better Day to Die
The Giggle\-Wrecker
I Had a Date with Lady Janet
A Perfect Night to Break Your Neck
Salamander Four
The Soo Girl Charity
#7
The Silver Mistress
1973
This seventh novel in the Modesty Blaise series will not fail to please any of Modesty's innumerable fans. Modesty and her partner, Willie Garvin, are hot on the trail of a captured British Intelligence agent, but when they confront the agent's bizarre captors—a criminal tycoon, a genteel lady assassin, two inscrutable Chinese killers, and the invincibe Mr. Sexton, the world's premier combatant—even Modesty begins to doubt that she can succeed in this operation. Her task is further complicated when Willie's girlfriend and a young pilot also are taken hostage. Their situation seems hopeless until the Silver Mistress appears, bringing this thrilling saga to an astonishing climax.
#8
Last Day in Limbo
1977
"Modesty’s latest adventure takes place in the jungles of South America, where she and her loyal henchman, Willie Garvin, take on the evil Mistress of Limbo. The Mistress has enslaved the people of Limbo, including Modesty’s friend Danny. After a failed kidnapping, Modesty learns of her friend’s enslavement and sets out to rescue him and set Limbo free. In an adventure that spans London, Switzerland, and New York City, Modesty ends up in Guatemala, where the Mistress of Limbo has commanded that Modesty be sacrificed to the gods. With Willie at her side, Modesty must fight a Mayan priestess to free herself and the slaves on what will be the last day in Limbo."
#9
Dragon's Claw
1978
This crime adventure begins when heroine Modesty Blaise finds Luke Fletcher, one of Britain's greatest artists, lost on a raft in the middle of the ocean. This discovery leads Modesty to an island called Dragon's Claw, where the evil Sam Solon has kidnapped the world's leading art experts, keeping them prisoner to admire his collection of stolen art treasures. Along with Willie Garvin, her loyal lieutenant, Modesty begins to unravel a complex set of murder mysteries until she is suddenly held captive herself. Modesty relies on her ingenuity and resourcefulness to escape from Solon and his two hired killers, Revered Uriah Crsip and Beauregard Browne, as well as solve the crimes and lure the evil men into an inescapable trap. With Modesty's adventurous character and a thrilling plot, this novel is an exciting addition to this acclaimed series of crime fiction.
#10
The Xanadu Talisman
1981
In this classic return we see Modesty both at her most feminine and at her toughest. Trapped in an earthquake disaster with a dying man, she makes a promise that is to lead her and her faithful friend Willie Garvin into the most perilous crisis of their careers. Their quest takes them from Tangier to Paris, from the Riviera to Corsica, and finally to a stronghold in the heart of the Atlas Mountains, their every move observed and manipulated by El Mico, the most notorious and dangerous criminal genius in the Mediterranean. Unknown to Modesty, she holds a secret that El Mico covets above all else, and she is brought to a final confrontation with death in the stronghold of Xanadu. As in all the Modesty Blaise stories, this book is peopled with a host of eccentric the engaging Dr. Giles Pennyfeather, Modesty’s devoted friend, and her opponents Little Krell, a prodigy in combat, the Silk brothers, juvenile adults who deal in death, and the astonishing Nanny Prendergast.
#11
The Night of Morningstar
1982
There have been few other female action heroines like Modesty Blaise—a tough orphan who became the leader of the Network, a crime syndicate specializing in art theft and industrial espionage. This 10th book of her adventures begins with a flashback to the last days of the Network, when Modesty was about to retire, and describes the organization’s final, astonishing operation before it disbanded. This operation is echoed several years later when Modesty, with her peerless lieutenant Willie Garvin, finds herself drawn into conflict with the mysterious group known as the Watchmen, who have plans to kill Modesty in London and then destroy San Francisco’s Golden Gate bridge. Modesty and Willie find themselves prisoners on a drillship off the Ilhas Desertas and must use their resourcefulness to escape.
#12
Dead Man's Handle
1985
This latest installment in the Modesty Blaise pulp-fiction series opens with Willie Garvin, Modesty's loyal lieutenant, rescuing a Hong Kong businessman from a Red Chinese jail. The thrills continue when Willie is kidnapped by Sibyl Pray and held prisoner at the Hostel of Righteousness, the headquarters for delusional terrorist Dr. Thaddeus Pilgrim, on the Greek island of Kalivari. The plot thickens as Willie is brainwashed into believing that Modesty has been killed and that he must kill her murderer—a woman who looks exactly like Modesty. When Modesty finds herself kidnapped and brought to Kalivari, she is forced to fight in deadly gladiatorial combat against Willie. Peppered with ingenious twists of fortune, varied and exotic locations, and a cast of fiendishly evil villains, this is a classic Modesty Blaise adventure.
Author
Peter O'Donnell
Author · 45 books
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information. Peter O'Donnell also wrote as Madeleine Brent. http://www.cs.umu.se/~kenth/modesty.html is an excellent resource on this author. To help keep the novels and the adventure strip collections separate, here's some info about the Modesty Blaise works. In 1963, O'Donnell began his 38-year run as writer of the Modesty Blaise adventure story strip, which appeared six days a week in English and Scottish newspapers. He retired the strip in 2001. Each strip story took 18-20 weeks to complete. Several publishers over the years have attempted to collect these stories in large softcovers. Titan Publishing is currently in the process of bringing them all out in large-format softcover, with 2-3 stories in each books. These are called "graphic novels" in the Goodreads title. Meanwhile, during those 38 years, O'Donnell also wrote 13 books about Modesty Blaise: 11 novels and 2 short story/novella collections. These stories are not related to the strip stories; they are not novelizations of strip stories. They are entirely new, though the characters and "lives" are the same. These have been labeled "series #0". There is a large article on Peter O'Donnell on Wikipedia, with a complete bibliography.
