A Taste for Death (Modesty Blaise, No. 4)

There is no such thing as a mediocre Modesty Blaise adventure! A Taste for Death keeps the reader riveted in the seat, whether a newcomer to Modesty or an old friend! Hang on for the ride as Modesty and Garvin weave their way through a myriad of death traps and mad villains. This series is highly recommended, along with the collections of newspaper strips.

Modesty is still hanging out with Steve Collier, but Willie is on holiday, pearl fishing in Panama, to make her a present. Purely by accident, he witnesses the murder of one girl, and kidnapping of another, and decides to intervene. He is surprised to find their old enemy Gabriel pulling the strings. Realising the girl is blind, he manages to get her out, with the help of Modesty and a police captain she is friendly with who does not take too kindly to gangsters on his turf. Meanwhile, Tarrant tells Modesty about a strange dig a friend of his is on, in Algeria. It gets stranger. The blind girl Willie and Modesty rescued, Dinah, is a diviner of amazing talents. Hence Gabriel's interest. Gabriel is not their major enemy, but Simon Delicata, who is basically a superhuman freak, and Willie has tangled with him before, coming off badly. "Yesterday Willie had been struggling to lift a block of stone bedded in the ground. It was a task that would have tested three men, and the lifting gear was in use elsewhere. Delicata had watched for a while, then stepped down into the trench and heaved the stone out with seemingly small effort. " "'And then do you know what I discovered?' asked Delicata with a benign, teasing air. 'I discovered that I was rather clever, quite remarkably strong, and to a large degree invulnerable. My threshold of pain is perhaps uniquefy high. Nothing hurts. ... 'Then it dawned on me. My freakishness lay not only in my shape. It went deeper. Apart from scarcely feeling pain, I could sustain blows which would have maimed or killed another man.' ... 'I also realized,' Delicata went on, 'that I had a certain mental invulnerability as well. Neither drink nor drugs nor women had an addictive effect on me. I could use them without the slightest fear of b*ndage.'" So, the buried treasure of a Roman tribune, a seriously dangerous supervillain, a betrayal by an old acquaintance, an a quest fo find out who is pulling Delicata's strings, after he decoys Modesty and Willie allowing him to snatch Dinah. Throw in a swordmaster, as well. Great stuff.

In the world of thriller books, I (purely subjectively based on total enjoyment) believe there are three great series: Peter O'Donnell's Modesty Blaise; James Bond by Ian Fleming; and Robert B. Parker's Spenser (the first twelve anyway). This is the best of the Modesty Blaise books, and that's saying a lot since it is hard to put down any of them once you start reading. Even if you don't buy into the whole series, as a stand alone this is one of the best action books I've read. Don't miss it.

"A Taste for Death" was written by Peter O'Donnell in 1969 and is the fourth book in the Modesty Blaise series of books. In my opinion it is the best book in the series, and perhaps the best book I've ever read. (And re-read and re-read. I think I've probably read this book at least 10 times in the last 35 years.) The book starts with two parallel stories, one in Panama and one in England. In Panama, Willie Garvin (Modesty's loyal side-kick) runs into Gabriel and McWhirter, the two memorable bad guys from the first Modesty Blaise book. They are trying to kidnap Dinah Pilgrim, a blind girl they need because of her having a special talent. Willie saves Dinah and then a major confrontation ensues, with Modesty coming to Willie's aid and both Modesty and Willie surviving traps that should not possibly be survivable. Meanwhile, in England Modesty Blaise has encountered Simon Delicata, an incredibly nasty villain and perhaps the scariest fictional bad guy I've ever read about. Delicata first kills an archeologist with ties to a research expedition in the Sahara Desert, and later strikes directly at Modesty's cottage in the English countryside. In a very satisfying plot maneuver the two supposedly separate story lines merge. It turns out that Gabriel and McWhirter are in league with Delicata, and Modesty and Willie must travel to Algeria to face this trio of villains in a fight to the death. A fight that they have almost no chances of surviving against the combined force of Gabriel and Delicata. The most fascinating thing about the Modesty Blaise books is the personality of the two main characters, Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin. They both have an amazing will to survive and to overcome the incredible dangers they are faced with. They have fantastic fighting abilities and can be cold and deadly when necessary. But they are also warm and loving, and intensely loyal to each other and to their friends. The quotation at the start of this review is what Modesty says to Willie near the end of the book, when they suddenly and unexpectedly find themselves once again face to face with Simon Delicata, the main villain of the story. Modesty is already seriously injured from a previous fight and unable to move, and Delicata, a cold-blooded killer, has previously demonstrated that he can easily beat Willie in an unarmed fight. This situation, and the ensuing fight between Willie and Simon Delicata, is one of several high points in the book, and one I'll remember for the rest of my days. Incidentally, Stephen Collier, introduced in "I, Lucifer", is back, and he and Dinah Pilgrim remain recurring figures in the remaining books in the series. This book is a bit special in the Modesty Blaise series due to there being an interesting love story with an unexpected twist. I'm rather hard pressed to say anything negative about this book. It's too short, like all of the Modesty books, and there's too much smoking. And, unfortunately, being the best book in the

Long an admirer of Peter O'Donnell's creation Modesty Blaise, this is my favorite of his books. Willie Garvin is his usual funny, deadly self and Steve Collier was never better. The story involves pearl-diving, kidnapping, murder, sword-fights, esp, and buried treasure. The villain, Simon Delicata, gives me the shivers -- and his fight with Willie was a remarkable piece of writing. Everytime I think about this book, I wish O'Donnell hadn't retired.