Books: Stout fella

BEAU IDEAL—Percival Christopher Wren—Stokes ($2.00).

With Beau Geste, Christopher Wren roused such wholesale devotion to the gallant Brothers Geste of the French Foreign Legion that he has found it necessary to pronounce two post mortems—Beau Sabreur, and now Beau Ideal. No Conan Doyle, facile at reviving favorite characters, he is nevertheless faithful in concocting new thrills, new astounding coincidences, new bad puns, and pinning them to the surviving Geste—two others having already died elaborate deaths.

Not that John Geste, survivor, is even the hero of the present yarn, but it is for his sake that Otis Vanbrugh, chief protagonist, braves countless risky episodes, Arab raids, hand-to-hand fights, imprisonment, penal servitude. Otis ransacks the heart of Africa for John Geste, who in turn is trying to find two lost friends, Buddy and Hank. The first coincidence: Otis and Geste, both serving in the Foreign Legion penal colony, are both dumped into a dark silo, and forgotten. Otis recognizes Geste by his boyhood expression—”stout fella.” Second coincidence: in the middle of the desert Otis appeals to two Arab chiefs for aid, and finds that one of them is his long-lost brother in disguise. Moreover, the two of them are Geste’s Buddy and Hank. Third coincidence: with Geste’s life at stake, Otis had promised to marry a half-caste dancing girl. Honor-bound to keep his loathful promise, he is on the verge of marriage when he discovers her to be his half-sister. With such luck the end cannot but be happy—and the surviving Geste still survives.