Modesty Blaise - Peter O'Donnell

When I was a kid, there was only one kick-ass babe to serve as a role model, and that was Wonderwoman. These days I seem to be armpit-deep in Buffies and Laras and Trinities, all exhorting me to express myself via the spinning kick. If I didn't have to earn a living, I would spend a couple of years on a women's studies PHD*, on an academic quest to find the very first kick-ass babe. One contender for the title would be Modesty Blaise.



Before reading the book, I had assumed that Modesty was some kind of cowgirl, but she is in fact an ex-international-jewel-thief-turned-secret-agent. She is of course fantastically beautiful as well as having her own, somewhat unrealistic fighting style. Modesty would fit in very well with our current Nuts culture in which stripping and feminism seem to have become confused, as her clothes come off pretty regularly. One of her preferred moves is "The Nailer", which consists of getting her nawks out and then taking advantage of the surprise this causes. Hilarious, but only a male author would think hand-to-hand fighting with unrestrained hooters was a good idea.

Modesty also comes equipped with Willie Garvin, her surprisingly likable right hand man. Willie is a cockney ex-criminal and in many other books in the "silly thriller" category would just have been a generic forelock-tugging representative of the lower orders. However, it soon becomes clear that he lays on the "apples and pears, guv'nor" stuff because it suits him to have the toffs write him off as an idiot.

Modesty's prefered weapon is also absolutely cool as... well, too cool for corroborative nouns. She favours the yawara, a tiny, handbag-sized blunt instrument. I was so impressed I considered making one for a bit, then decided that any hard object which will stick out a bit from your fist (phone, pen, hairbrush, cutlery) could be used the same way, without the legal implications of having a purpose-built weapon.

I can see myself searching Abe for the rest of the Modesty Blaise books, now. The only thing that can touch them in terms of adventure coupled with high camp is the Saint books. And would Simon Templar ever distract the guards by dropping his kecks, then take them on in unarmed combat with his tackle swinging about? He would not.

*Yeah, I'm well aware of the irony that only kept women have the time to pursue academic feminism. Nevermind, I'm living the dream instead.

Pulp Fiction for January

There are some who probably believe that January is the month for tackling the weighty tomes that have been sitting unread on your shelf for the past year, making you feel guilty. I could not disagree more. With the outside cold and dark and all my money spent long before payday, January already has plenty of potential for misery without making things any worse. Therefore I have indulging in a bit of pulpish genre fiction to cheer myself up.

All Fun and Games Until Someone Loses An Eye – Christopher Brookmeyer

This book is currently the top contender for “Airport Novel of the Year”, and award (bestowed in a star-studded ceremony which takes place in my imagination) which I give for the most entertainly daft paperback thriller I've read all year. Previous winners include “Good News, Bad News” by Mark Wolstonecroft and a delightfully silly book about an ex-navy seal going cave diving, so it's pretty prestigious. In real life All Fun and Games was winner of the 2007 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize for comic writing – although this is no guarantee of anything; the same prize was won by DBC Pierre's “Vernon God Little” which is unspeakably depressing!

Anyway, the plot is that a top scientist goes missing from his job at a secret weapons research facility. He is being hunted by all the major arms manufacturers in order that they can either make use of his research, or ensure that it is never completed. The leader of a team of mercenaries hired by the scientist's original employer comes up with a brilliant plan: he will hire the one person who will stop at absolutely nothing to find the missing scientist... his mum! His mum is a forty something Scottish housewife who has never committed so much as parking offence. All this is about to change as wee Janet goes AWOL from her suburban life and finds the skills learned in boxercise proove very useful in the cut-throat world of international espionage.

As I race towards middle age myself, I find that I particularly like books and films which are kind to ladies of this age (Check out Kung Fu Hustle – it features a chain-smoking, plump, middle-aged lady kung fu master!). I like to think that I will still be allowed to have adventures when I'm forty. One thing I didn't like was the sex scene between Janet and the international man of mystery who has recruited her. I think this is partly just me (I prefer my sexual tension unresolved) and partly because it felt like the author was writing to a formula (e.g. hollywood blockbusters must have 3 explosions and a car chase, international spy stories need at least one sex scene) rather than allowing his characters to behave consistently. Nevertheless, I was enormously pleased when Janet left her annoying, complacent husband at the end. Bugger girl power, this book has middle-aged-woman-firing-two-9mm-barettas-at-once-power.

I Am Legend – Richard Matheson

This book is number 2 in the “SF masterworks” series. Does this mean that it is officially the 2^nd best SF ever? Don't know about that but really good for its time and well worth a read if you haven't already. In fact, go and read it right now as I'm about to give away the ending.

Robert Neville might well be the last human left alive. A mystery virus seems to have turned everyone else into vampires. By night he cowers in his fortified house and by day he repairs his defences, then seeks out and stakes as many sleeping vampires has he can find.

Eventually his house is infitrated by Ruth, part of a group of people infected with the virus, who have managed to stave off full undeadness (with magical mcguffin tablets of some kind). This allows them to retain their personalties and intelligence and now they are rebuiling society – for vampires. When members of this group finally capture Neville and sentence him to death, he realises that from their point of view he his the night salking thing of terror who comes and kills them when they are helpless in their beds. He notes with grim satisfaction that he has become a creature of legend.

My husband I both read this recently while off work with the flu and it becoes particularly resonnant if read when you've been at home all day on your own, bored, lonely and feeling like you might well be the last person alive. Much of the point of the book seems to be about the dehumanising nature of hardship. After the death of his wife and daughter Neville seems to have lost the capacity for any feeling oter than anger. His constnat conflit with the vampires has made him nable to think of them as anything other than blood-seeking animals, desite observing intelligent behaviour in some of them – he even captures some of them alive to experiment on when he is trying to investigate their condition.

Not sure if I can go & see Will Smith film as I fear some Hollywood arse-wit will have gone and stuck a happy ending on to it.