Margins
The Xanadu Talisman book cover
The Xanadu Talisman
1981
First Published
4.06
Average Rating
288
Number of Pages

Part of Series

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.
Avg Rating
4.06
Number of Ratings
380
5 STARS
32%
4 STARS
43%
3 STARS
23%
2 STARS
2%
1 STARS
0%
goodreads

Author

Peter O'Donnell
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.

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