My Weekly Book

2007 Reading Challenge: Book 67

And so to our last Modesty Blaise novel of 2007 - we really did go at them during this last month of the year. This book, published in 1969 and therefore not to be confused with the 1986 PD James novel of the same name, raises the stakes on the first page by separating the protagonists at the outset.

That former international jewel thief Willie Garvin, in a long-planned endeavour that is explained in the course of the narrative, is busy pearl-diving in Panama while Modesty does her own thing in London. He witnesses what appears to him to be the particularly senseless killing of a young woman. In return he kills the perpetrators and rescues their intended second victim, the sister of the dead girl, who is blind. In the course of this he learns how he has interrupted a pet scheme of arch super-villain Gabriel, the sworn enemy of himself and Modesty Blaise after the two of them handed him a pretty hard-to-swallow humiliation in their last encounter (as recounted in the eponymous first novel).

Gabriel is not minded to take any more interference from Blaise and Garvin, either. He recognises Willie’s handiwork when he observes that his henchmen have been killed by means of a throwing knife, the latter’s weapon of choice. He immediately engages every criminal in Panama to find out where Willie and the girl, Dinah Pilgrim, are hiding. Modesty is called upon to come and get them out of trouble, thereby triggering a trap that nearly kills the pair of them and delivers the girl, Dinah Pilgrim, straight back into Gabriel’s hands. Dinah, it transpires, has a special ability. And, as a result, Gabriel has plans for her, oh yes.

Modesty’s and Willie’s bid to save Dinah leads them into captivity, torture and a long battle of wits against seemingly impossible odds that genuinely does seem to offer no way out. With these stories, it’s never a matter of whether the pair of them will be able to get themselves out of trouble. It’s more a question of at what cost - will they be able to save companions, associates and innocent civilians who are caught up in trouble? What physical and psychological injuries will they have to sustain in order to win through? And will Peter O’Donnell be able to preserve the integrity of his fictional world, and of his characters, as he plots and writes it?

This story does contain a number of particularly far-fetched elements, genre notwithstanding - perhaps even more so than its predecessor, I, Lucifer, in which it is necessary to accept that psychic phenomena such as precognition are tangible, accurate and even measurable. In this story Modesty must work out how to win a deadly serious, to-the-death fencing match against an acknowledged master, play the psychology of her captors with all the skill and nerve of a poker high-roller and use her powers of physical and mental control to get herself (and the somewhat hapless Stephen Collier, who has tagged along for the ride, much to his subsequent regret) through the ordeal of torture with nerve gas. There are also a few mind-stretching coincidences, including the fact that an aspect of the archaeology in the lost city where Modesty, Willie, Steve and Dinah are held captive, provides the very resource they need to plan an escape, at the exact point when they need it.

But this book also has many of the aspects that make the series great - an acceptance of the narrative need to risk the characters without allowing them recourse to the same solutions time after time; a willingness to test the boundaries of the relationship between the two principals (it comes out of this one stronger than ever, I think, despite both of them getting into deeper romantic waters than they have swum before) and, as pointed out by a 2004 Observer review I just read dealing with a couple of other volumes in the series, a celebration of individuality and of a consistent personal code of ethics that will see you through most situations.

Like the novels and comic strips that come before it, this was a fun, satisfying, entertaining and thought-provoking read that was like playing a game of chess with the author - trying to see what moves he had planned and how he would avoid certain traps for his characters and narrative. And, like the rest of the series, it’s recommended.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, February 3rd, 2008 at 9:16 pm and is filed under 2007 reading challenge. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.