FORGOTTEN BOOK: LAST DAY IN LIMBO

 Last Day in Limbo by Peter O'Donnell  (1976)

Modesty Blaise first saw light of day in a comic strip on May 13, 1963.  Modesty was a beautiful and deadly former crime boss turned adventuress and spy, starting out at a time when spies were all the thing.  She was smart, resourceful, and registered high on the sexy scale.  The strip was created by Peter O'Donnell (1920-2010), who had been working in the comics industry since leaving the Army after World War II, including writing an adaptation of Ian Fleming's Dr. No for the Daily Express.  Modesty Blaise was soon syndicated internationally, including in Australia, South Africa, India, Malaysia, and Scotland.  The strip's appearance in America was erratic, in part because of its occasional nudity.

Modesty's trusted sidekick was Willy Garvin, a street-smart deadly Cockney.  Although both had romantic partners off and on throughout the series, Modesty's relationship with Willy was purely platonic and ran much deeper than any physical relationship ever could.

Beginning in 1965, O'Donnell began writing novels and short stories about his creation, some of them based on the comic strip adventures.  Characters appearing in the novels could some day also turn up in the strip.  Eleven novels and two short story collections were published.

A 1966 movie, Modesty Blaise, starring Monica Vitti and Terence Stamp, veered far from O'Donnell's vision of his heroine, and flopped.  A one-hour television pilot was aired in 1982 on ABC and featured Ann Turkel as Modesty and Lewis Van Bergen as Willy.  It, too. failed.  The third time Modesty Blaise was filmed was with Alexandra Staden in 2003's My Name Is Modesty, a direct-to-video film.  (The character of Willy Garvin was eliminated.)  Efforts to revive Modesty have not gone well, although both Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Lopez have at one time expressed interest, and Neil Gaiman once wrote a treatment for the Modesty Blaise novel I, Lucifer.  The character has fared better in audio versions iwth at least seven radio broadcasts, including 1978's six-part BBC drama Last Day in Limbo, with  Barbara Kellerman and James Bolam.

Last Day in Limbo was the seventh novel in the series and reunited Madesty and Willy with several characters from previous books, including John Dall, Modetsy's current, multi-millionaire boyfriend, Maude Tiller, a Foreign Office spy from a wealthy background, Danny Chavasse, a former employee from Modesty's criminal days who has a supernatural gift for seduction, Professor Stephen Collier, archeologist and psychic, Dinah Collier, Stephen's blind wife who has preternatural dowsing skills, and Lucifer, an insane man who believes he is Satan and who can predict one's death.

The big bad in Last Day in Limbo is Tia Benita, a crazed old woman with a hated for the wealthy.  As a young woman in Guatemala, she watched her entire peasant family -- with the exception of her young nephew Paxero -- murdered by landowners during a night of terror.  Now rich, she gets her revenge by kidnapping the ultra-rich and powerful, making it appear that they have perished in accidents that have left no bodies behind, and turning those poeple in slaves on her coffee plantation hidden in the dense Guatemalan jungle.  Aided by her nephew and Damion, his bodyguard and partner in peversity, Benita has assembled an army of trained mercenaries to control her slaves through torture and execution.  Excape is impossible for the now-67 prisoners held on the plantation known as Limbo.  Benita's word is law; her slightest whim obeyed by her loyal nephew.  But Benita is old and in failing health.  when she dies -- and it may be very soon -- Paxero and Damion will murder all the slaves and anyone else with knowledge of Limbo, and they will completely obliterate any trace of the plantation.

Three years earlier, Paxero held a party on his yacht for elites only.  All were captured and made slaves and the yacht sunk -- what a tragic accident, so many lives lost, so many bodies unrecovered...One of the persons captured from the yacht was Danny Chavasse.  Modesty, as with the rest of the world, thought him dead, along with the others.  Paxero and Damion in the meantime, had physically and psychologically tortured Maude Tiller, not realizing that she was a Foreign Office spy.  Willy and Modesty planned to get back at Paxero and Damion,  but pulled back when Modesty discovered a clue that Danny might still be alive and that Paxero and Damion might know where he was.

One thing about comic strip spy novels:  the reader doesn't really mind when  coincidence after coincidence pile up.  It's all about the ride.  In the end, Modesty allows herself to be captured and Willy and Maude make a treacherous three-week trek by foot throught the jungles of Belize and Guatemala to help Modesty take down what appears to be an invincible army, even as their odds lessen each day.

Good, rousing fun with a heroine not quite like any other, told with wit and fast pacing.  

Modesty deserves a revival.