The Night of Morningstar

Modesty Blaise #11

by Peter O'Donnell

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.

Genres: Thriller, Mystery, Adventure, Fiction, Crime, Action, Contemporary

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

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.

Reviews

[Jenne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't even know how many times I've read this, and despite its many flaws I have no objectivity when it comes to the Modesty Blaise books. I love them all with big pink sparkly hearts.

[Agathafrye · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pluses:
Kick-ass female protagonist, Modesty Blaise- beautiful, polite, elegant, can kill you in five hundred different ways.
Kick-ass male sidekick, Willie Garvin- perfectly in tune with his boss, stoic, rugged, mad knife skills.
Both Modesty and Willie use meditation and advanced mental techniques to defeat their enemies, thus adding to their general kick-ass-ness.
Interesting setting transitions- these people go everywhere!

Minuses:
These books were written in the sixties and seventies. Sexism abounds.
Primary and secondary antagonists are boring and two dimensional.
Action scenes can be confusing.
Suspension of belief while reading is essential. Some of these scenarios are absolutely absurd.

Apparently, this series started out as a comic. I can see these stories playing out really well in graphic format.

Yep, I'd read another one of these.

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this was the first time I'd read a new-to-me Modesty Blaise for about 20 years, so I was very excited about it and lapped it up. As always, Modesty and Willie are so smart and ahead of the game that it would become slightly annoying if it wasn't so much fun to see how they get themselves out of tricky situations.

[Mike (the Paladin) · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've been on a nostalgia kick lately and rereading some of the books I read or that were around back in my "youth". I went through (along with a lot of America) a spy/intrigue stage back in the 60s/70s. I read the Bond books by Fleming, I was caught up in The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and I Spy and read their attendant novels (the ones based on the TV series)...I watched Secret agent/Danger Man, Mission Impossible, saw the 007 and Matt Helm movies. There was also modesty Blaise. I never got around to her (or his if referring to the author Peter O'Donnell) novels.

Modesty began her career as a criminal and this book is a "flashback" to the end of her criminal endeavors as head of The Network". Unfortunately the book isn't very good. The dialogue is stilted and poorly written (there isn't a contraction in sight anywhere. Every one says things like "am not", "can not", "let us", "you are" and so on...every single time.). Worse for a book about master criminals who are super deadly and competent I just couldn't get interested...I finally gave up.

I have another Modesty Blaise book waiting, I hope it's better, this could blast a lot of nostalgia, of course I can always go back and read I Spy, The Man Fro U.N.C.L.E. and James Bond. :)

[Mervi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great Modesty Blaise adventure. This time some of the elements which I don’t like are missing, so I enjoyed it even more than usual.

[Richard Clay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Last but one of the 'Modesty' novels and, while not among the best, there's still plenty here to keep the fan happy. In fact, the final catastrophe has enough apocalyptic whizz-bang-wallop to be worthy of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson (who, I think, owed Mr O'Donnell a trope or two).
The early part is generally the strongest, though, with Modesty accidentally blowing the cover of a CIA man and struggling to get him out of the mess he's in.
True, the cold war rationale of the villains' plot is pretty ludicrous, assuming that the Soviet dictatorship of the late 70s/early 80s was obsessively expansionist rather than cold-blooded, insular and decadent. But, though they were incredibly nasty, the commies of the late Brezhnev era, as they actually were, wouldn't have cut the mustard as 'Modesty' baddies; callous malice is way less exciting than 'Tamburlaine'-like megalomania.
Alas, by this stage, co-creator Jim Holdaway had been dead for twelve years and, for whatever reason, neither of his principal successors, Romero and Neville Colvin, got to do the cover. So, courtesy of a lesser artist, we have this bizarre image in which our heroine's upper garment defies the laws of comfort, good taste, perspective and, frankly, physics. I swear, anyone suggesting our Modesty get into a bra so clearly agonizing would have had the kongo up his... well, I don't like to think, but it'd have been somewhere jolly painful.

[Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three stars because I remember how much I enjoyed it when it first came out. Today, two and a half. Now I find it a bit meh, even as the Blaise saga goes. I am of course considerably older, and a completely different person than I was 40 years ago, but that's all to the good. No, the book is just a bit...well "technical" seems an odd word but it reminds me of some of the less successful James Bond movies, heavy on the descriptions of apparatus and light on the actual plot. Weng hardly gets a look in and if it weren't for dear Willy Garvin it would be just Mary Sue Modesty prancing about with her perfect sense of direction and ability to hit whatever she aims at with any weapon at all--except of course Garvin's knives. (Query: if she's so good with a blow pipe and a longbow, why can't she throw a knife efficiently?) There's a lot of space given to the meditation techniques that make them...what, exactly? Oh, that's it...special.
I basically picked this up again because I was dissatisfied with the nonfiction books I was reading and wanted a break, something different. This is certainly different.

[Tony Hisgett · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book starts back in the days when Modesty ran The Network, the idea was to introduce a couple of characters that would become more important later in the story. However, what I liked about this brief flashback is that it had Modesty planning and executing a scheme that actually worked for a change.
We nearly got halfway through the book before Modesty was kidnapped for the first time, but at least the moments of captivity were short and it did give Modesty chance to show her skills as she gets out of difficult situations.

I didn’t think the villains worked too well in this story, the author tried to explain the reasoning behind their acts of terrorism, but I really couldn’t follow the logical behind the explanation. Nonetheless, I enjoyed this story and just accepted the crimes didn’t make much sense.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

The official blurb about the book gets the timeline a little wrong. There is a flash back the days preceding the end of The Network, but that isn't the main story here. This episode comes a close to a 007 situation as I've read so far. Usually Willie and Modesty take on nasty criminals, even big organizations, but rarely are they political. Secret plans to slowly install authoritarian governments sympathetic to the USSR sound ominously like the plans of Maga-ots today.
Started the last novel today, though there are two that were released only in hardback and apparently never been transferred to ebook formats. I found of them, but the book was so poorly scanned, it is unreadable. I'll look around and see there are reasonable hardcopies available somwhere.

[John Peel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Modesty Blaise and her right-hand man, Willie Garvin, try hard, but they're simply not able to retire from action. Here, they run afoul of an organization named The Watchmen, who are pulling some astonishing capers and assassinating various people. When Modesty accidentally exposes a CIA agent, she feels compelled to help him out - at great peril to herself and Willie.

One of the best of the series, this is frequently very inventive, with plenty of action and thrills. In excellent read.

[Jan Sørensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last full novel with Modesty Blaise is perhaps a little less intense than Limbo, Taste for Death or Silver Mistress, but still highly recommended. A very old grudge against Modesty causes heer to take action against the Watchmen, a group of criminals.

[Gregoire · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pas dépassé le chapitre 3 qui est ma limite quand l'histoire ne m'intéresse pas et que j'ai du mal à rester concentré ...

[Tiina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Again, a re-read, but it had been a while. It's amusing to read about the omnipotent pair. No feat is too demanding. No situation such that cannot be handled. And always with integrity.

[Keith Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

2023 re-read

[Ralph · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wee bit of nostalgia. I hadn't read a Modesty Blaise in a very long time. It holds up pretty well as an enjoyable escapade

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

In which Modesty and Willie take on "The Watchmen," a bunch of ultra-murderous terrorist assholes whose objectives don't make a whole hell of a lot of sense and plan to, among other heinous acts, blow up the Golden Gate Bridge and assassinate the U.S. President (where are these guys now that we really need them?). As Modesty Blaise books go this is one of the weaker entires, but it's still worth reading and the mayhem-filled set-to on an oil rig is like something out of a James Bond movie (I mean that in a good way, reminiscing about the finale to YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE).

[Letta Raven · Rating 3 out of 5]

By page 17 I was ready to read the whole series. Fantastic heroine with clever gadgets, some diy, a loyal ally/best friend and the willingness to go above and beyond to stand against something she doesn't believe in. Early in the book she tackles taking down a known sex trafficker.

The Modesty series is one I fell for years ago thanks to the original 60's movie and I can't wait to read the rest of the books and check out the comic series as well!

[Janeece · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very different from the gothic romance that Madeleine Brent writes. It was interesting, but with some stupid love scenes (not descriptive) that didn't do anything for the plot. A lot of trashy talk. Didn't love it. I don't think I'm interested enough to even read another in the series.

[Phoebe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This might be my favorite Modesty Blaise book. But I've given them all five stars and I can't be trusted.