The Great Chrysanthemum

Contents

Foreword

Part One - Lost And Found

Part Two - When Trust Becomes A Dirty Word

Part Three - Snow And Bullets

Foreword

This tale sees the bringing together of two great characters whose lives are full of the most extraordinary excitement and adventure. Ian Fleming's James Bond is well known, and the Daily Express comic strip drawn by John Mclusky is still greatly admired to this day. Modesty Blaise is on the other hand a little less known, and yet was another newspaper comic strip character and heroine of both novel's and film -

Modesty Blaise-a brief history.

The story begins with a little girl, an amnesiac war refugee who escapes from a prison camp in the Balkans to a displaced person's camp in Greece where she saves the life of an old scholar-a rabbi named Lob. Rabbi Lob educates the girl and names her Modesty. Modesty whose favourite book among the rabbi's volumes is Malory's "L'Morte de Arthur" takes Blaise-the name of Merlin's tutor-as her surname. Years pass and Modesty grows quickly, becoming a beautiful young woman. When the old man dies Modesty buries her mentor and-now in her late teens- enters civilization, obtaining a job spinning a roulette wheel in a Tangier casino.
Within two years' time Modesty takes over her late employer's gang and two years later she is the head of the international crime syndicate known as "The Network". Whilst on a mission in Vietnam, Modesty Blaise meets a tough Cockney named Willie Garvin. She buys his freedom and Garvin becomes her loyal second in command. He calls her "Princess". The two partners in crime eventually leave The Network and retire with their fortunes to Great Britain (where The Network never operated) and set off to lead lives of leisure. But when Sir Gerald Tarrant, the head of British Intelligence, appeals to them for their assistance in a mission requiring an intimate knowledge of the underworld, they accept and thereafter become unpaid agents for Britain.
The Modesty Blaise comic strip began appearing in The Evening Standard during Easter in 1963 and ran without interruption until 2001 when it was retired. Peter O'Donnell, who created the strip, wrote every one of Modesty's adventures - along with thirteen prose
novels featuring his characters. The strip was initially sold as "the female James Bond" and started life at the beginning of Bond's cinematic popularity but Modesty's much more than a pale imitation of 007, and her unique exploits are well worth checking out.

Part One

Lost and Found

Raoul looked round The Legend at those dining tonight and smiled. Two of his favourite diners were in tonight, blissfully unaware of each other, yet if they had known that the other was in they would no doubt find excuses to know each other. Miss Blaise was sat at her usual table in the alcove to the right with her regular escort, Mr Garvin, and on the opposite side of the restaurant sat the very cultured and handsome Mr Bond. Bond was some sort of civil servant who was rumoured to work with MI6, and Miss Blaise was a woman of wealth who was known to dine with an assortment of characters from time to time. Characters, who liked to live on both sides of the law. It did not really bother Raoul too much what his diners did for a living, along
as they were considerate of the type of atmosphere he endeavoured to create in his restaurant.

The Legend was undoubtedly one of the more exclusive restaurants in London and the cuisine served was fit for kings and heads of state. Modesty Blaise, resplendent in a simple black
evening dress that came to just below the knee, and black hair teased into a voluminous style that framed her beautiful features that revealed large slightly upturned cat - like eyes and
voluptuous ruby lips, put her hand to her throat as she laughed at something Willie Garvin had told her. Around that very slender neck was a diamond choker that glittered seductively in the
subdued lighting given off by the candle on the table. She sipped the Champagne and said,