In 1965, O'Donnell novelized his screenplay for a motion picture version (the final release of which in 1966 used virtually nothing of O'Donnell's original material), which was published as "Modesty Blaise". This book was a huge success and O'Donnell would publish a dozen more novels and short story collections until 1996. Kingsley Amis said the novels were "endlessly fascinating" and that Blaise and Garvin were "one of the great partnerships in fiction, bearing comparison with that of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson."