Willy Garvin is a fictional character in a series of books, and more famously comics, written by Peter O'Donnel. It is from a few different Modesty Blaise books by Peter O'Donnell. I hope for some of you this introduction will lead you to want to get into Modesty Blaise yourself. She has quite a following in Scandinavia where the Modesty Blaise mailing list originates. The list is not entirely automatic, but sooner or later, the list op will get to subscribe you.
Volume is light.
The blade was five and one half inches long, of fine steel honed to a perfect edge along the full length of one side. The curve to the poine was very slightly asymmetrical, and he realised that this was to balance the other edge, which was honed for only three inches from the point and then flattened out slightly up to the hilt. On this flattened edge, only a sixteenth of an inch thick, a slim fillet of brass had been bonded. There was no cross-guard, only the elliptical base of the hilt, which extended a quarter of an inch all around the blade. Tarrant had expected that the hilt would be of sharkskin, but it was of black, sharply dimpled bone, rough to the touch - to guard against slipping in a moist hand, he guessed.