Pieces of Modesty

Modesty Blaise attracts adjectives as honey draws bears: beautiful, smart, sexy, tough, not-to-be-messed-with and, of course, totally unconventional. Those who don't know her will probably enjoy this collection of short capers more than her longer adventures. (After three or four manic stunts, the longer pieces often get too outrageous.) Here we're treated to romps involving South American guerrillas and a cricket bowl (""A Better Day to Die''); a novel way to get over the Berlin Wall (``The Giggle-Wrecker''); Willie Garvin's own tale of derring-do (``I Had a Date with Lady Janet,'' happily not narrated in Cockney); jewel thieves on the Riviera (``A Perfect Night to Break Your Neck''); vicious industrial spies in Finland (``Salamander Four''); and a rich man's kinkiness (``The Soo Girl Charity''). Disbelief isn't so much suspended as flouted. Some readers will lap up all the derring that's done and leave it at that. Connoisseurs of James Bond's high seriousness and snobbery, though, will howl in delightespecially since under it all, Modesty really is a nice girl. (November 19)