Peter O'Donnell (11 April 1920 – 3 May 2010 was an English writer of mysteries and of comic strips, best known as the creator of Modesty Blaise, an action heroine/undercover trouble-shooter. He was also an award-winning gothic historical romance novelist who wrote under the female pseudonym Madeleine Brent; in 1978, his novel Merlin's Keep won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award of the Romantic Novelists' Association.