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All five stories take place at different times in the life of
Modesty Blaise. The first, "Bellman", begins with a flashback to when Modesty is 20 years old. In "The Dark Angels" Modesty is in her late 20s, in "Old Alex" she is in her early 30s, in "The Girl With the Black Balloon" she is in her late
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In "Old Alex", O'Donnell makes it clear that fictional
Modesty has a different rate of ageing than real people. The "Old Alex" story is set in 1997, so assuming that stories in the first books took place around 1965–1970, then Blaise aged something like eight years during an actual 30-year period.
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and given only a short time to live, chooses to give her life to save a train full of innocents, including many children, from a group of rebels. Soon after revealing her illness to Willie, Modesty is killed in an attack, and shortly after that Willie too is shot dead. The story ends with the two
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When Peter O'Donnell brought his comic strip to a close five years later he chose to do so with a more upbeat story promising future adventures. In addition, the literary canon does not exist in the same continuity as the comic strip (owing to situations and characters differing.)
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was at one point considered one of the rarest of the
Modesty Blaise book series as it is the only one that was not initially made available in paperback and the hardcover editions went out of print and are considered collectables. However,
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The stories featured in the collection are "Bellman", "The Dark Angels", "Old Alex", "The Girl With the Black
Balloon" and "Cobra Trap". "Bellman" is an adaptation of the 1968 comic strip serial "The Killing Ground".
217:"Cobra Trap", the title piece of the collection, is (among fans) the most controversial Modesty Blaise story, in that it profiles the final mission of Modesty and her partner,
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221:. The story takes place 10–15 years after the time frame of the comic strip/novels. Modesty, who has been recently diagnosed with an inoperable
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30s, and finally in "Cobra Trap", she is about 52. Ages are approximate because they are not specified and
Modesty does not know her exact age.
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released a paperback edition of the collection in 2006, 10 years after the hardcover release, putting the book into wide circulation again.
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Elements of several other stories (in particular "Old Alex" and "Bellman") also appeared in the comic strip prior to being featured in
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comic strip, adapted the story for the publication. To date its only
English-language publication has been in the American magazine
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Hardcover first edition, 1996, Souvenir Press, featuring Jim
Holdaway's original cover art.
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was released 11 years after the previous book in the series,
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O'Donnell, Peter, Introduction to "The
Killing Ground" in
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175:is the title of a short story collection by
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279:was a painting of Modesty Blaise by
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226:friends reuniting in some form of
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314:(Titan Books, December 2004), np
312:Modesty Blaise: The Black Pearl
245:as a postscript to the British
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421:Last Day in Limbo
397:A Taste for Death
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381:Sabre-Tooth
243:Scandinavia
237:In 2002, a
223:brain tumor
78:Spy fiction
19:Cobra Trap
548:Categories
526:Characters
480:Cobra Trap
389:I, Lucifer
298:References
287:Cobra Trap
277:Cobra Trap
270:Cobra Trap
239:comic book
189:Cobra Trap
172:Cobra Trap
228:afterlife
84:Publisher
201:Contents
140:35709600
56:Language
59:English
518:(2003)
510:(1982)
502:(1966)
483:(1996)
475:(1972)
456:(1985)
448:(1982)
440:(1981)
432:(1978)
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365:Novels
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64:Series
36:Author
74:Genre
134:OCLC
121:ISBN
99:1996
356:by
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
