Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Too Much of a Good Thing?

I, Lucifer by Peter O'Donnell

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Out of all the Modesty Blaise books, I, Lucifer is my least favorite, and I can’t pin down exactly why. It might be my Victorian prudishness dealing with the adventure having three of her lovers in one story. She’s always been nonchalant about her partners, leaving them friends when she departs, but two of the three aren’t quite so easy-going as she is, and she has to remind them of who owns her body and who decides what she does with it. We have the […]

A Change to the Modesty Blaise Formula

Dragon’s Claw by Peter O’Donnell

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In almost every Modesty Blaise pulp fiction novel, there’s a thriller formula. Usually, a nefarious and colorful megalomaniac is trying to take over the world/kill everyone/overturn countries and needs some hapless but genius schmo to accomplish a key task in their plan. Modesty and her hunky partner, Willie Garvin, encounter the poor guy and save him. Then, they go after the mastermind to ensure the victim is safe and bring the villain to justice. Modesty generally takes the schmuck to bed during the healing and […]

Are All Victorian Romances the Same Plot?

Golden Urchin by Madeleine Brent

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Like the Modesty Blaise books I’ve read by Peter O’Donnell, his Victorian romances (writing as Madeleine Brent) also follow a familiar structure. I’ve read three of his thriller/romances and they have much in common. Young women in impoverished circumstances (a fishergirl, a Yak-whisperer in Tibet, and a white aborigine with fiery red hair) encounter a handsome man, save his life, become (or are) orphans, are taken into a household that educates them and teaches them to be “civilized.” They are the secret children of extremely […]

A Change to the Modesty Blaise Formula

Dragon’s Claw by Peter O’Donnell

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In almost every Modesty Blaise pulp fiction novel, there’s a simple thriller formula. Usually, a nefarious and colorful megalomaniac is trying to take over the world/kill everyone/overturn countries and needs some hapless schmo to accomplish a key task in their plan. Modesty and her hunky partner, Willie Garvin, encounter the poor victim and save him. Then, they go after the mastermind to ensure their new friend is safe and bring the villain to justice. Modesty generally takes the schmuck to bed during the healing and […]

More Than a Female James Bond

The Night of Morningstar by Peter O'Donnell

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This is a recreational reread for me. I love the pulp novels of Peter O’Donnell and his exciting secret agent, Modesty Blaise, and reread the 13 novels every couple years. Modesty, in this novel, works with her equally competent partner, Willie Garvin, to combat a worldwide organization attempting to take over the world. In the other books, her beginnings as the head of a European crime syndicate is mentioned, but in this story, we watch her early retirement as she and Willie have decided crime […]

Heroine as Victim

Tregaron's Daughter by Madeleine Brent

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When I started reading this, I was surprised how similar the plot was to Madeleine Brent’s (Modesty Blaise writer Peter O’Donnell in reality) first novel, Merlin’s Keep. We have a spunky young lass, a dying father, a benevolent and rich foster father who takes her into his family, and a handsome young man with a checkered past who seems to dislike her but secretly pines for her. Cadi Tregaron from Cornwall is the spunky heroine. She takes care of her father in a small fishing […]



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