Hot Chills

Smart, chic and deadly: the incomparable Modesty Blaise. But the edition isn't perfect.

Updated on: 5 February 2022 9:13 pm

Hot Chills

Evening Standard

The Cobra Trap

So yes, bullets ricochet and knives flash, but there’s also cool wit, warm sex and a soaring optimism about fighting for good causes. Modesty and Willie are certainly faster and brighter than anyone can possibly be, but they also have an endearing appetite for ordinary pleasures—tasty food and wonderful friendships—which make the encounters with barbed-wire manacles all the more horrifyingly vivid. The edition isn’t perfect: there are scores of misplaced quotation marks. A few words such as "negro" and "pansy" sound dated. But Modesty’s platonic relationship with Willie is still the most enviable mixed-gender partnership on earth and even by today’s jaded standards the villains are satisfyingly fiendish. Buy the set! It’s cheaper than making 13 trips to the store.