Modesty Blaise

Modesty Blaise is an action-adventure/spy fiction novel by Peter O'Donnell first published in 1965, featuring the character Modesty Blaise, whom O'Donnell had created for a comic strip in 1963. History This was the first novel to feature the character of Modesty Blaise and her right-hand-man, Willie Garvin. The series of books (all written by O'Donnell) ran concurrently with the comic strip until 1996 (the comic strip ran until 2001). Technically, this is a novelisation of a screenplay O'Donnell wrote based upon the character, although it predated the film release by a year. The filmed version of the screenplay bore little resemblance to O'Donnell's original (the author was often quoted as saying only a single, inconsequential, line of dialogue remained from his original script). Although the 1966 film version of Modesty Blaise was not a critical success, the book proved popular with fans of both the comic strip and readers of spy fiction (Blaise was promoted on the cover of the first American edition by Doubleday as the feminine answer to James Bond), and O'Donnell followed up with 10 more novels and two short story collections over the next 30 years. Most of the books had their first United Kingdom editions published by Souvenir Press, with Pan Books publishing all but the final volume, Cobra Trap, in paperback. A variety of American publishers, meanwhile, took turns issuing the series.