28 FEBRUARY 1936, Page 42

THE WHITE TUAREG

By Operator 1384

Life, in the French Foreign Legion is reputed to be quite unlike the romantic adventurous existence of the legionnaire of fiction. 'Yet book after book comes from the press pur- porting to be a true account of this life, and each one is more thrilling and romantic than the last, and told with such dexterity and colour that one might imagine that writing was one of the daily exercises of a recruit. The White Tuareg (Rich and Cowan, 8s. 6d.) has them all beaten. Operator 1384, an Englishman, is a member of the Espitmnage Central of the Legion, and his book is an account of an attempt to clear up the drug and white-slave traffic in French North Africa. With the help of the fists, guns, and sticks of dynamite of his friend McCann (who plays a Victor McLaglan role to the author's Ronald Coltnan) they penetrate to the heart of the Hornier Mountains—whence no white man had ever returned—and enter the secret capital and-smuggling headquarters- Of-flee Tuareg Berbers. There, thanks to the help of the beautiful half-sister of the dreaded %%Vie :Tuarg* they intiett_tliat gentleman, who tutus out to ste .esseapiscl Aegvonteeyis, wind, promising him a free pardon, perinade him to renounce the chieftaincy of _the slayers. _Tiomanse„,, death, -• torture, vice and the can-can arc other ingredienta in the story, which the publishers claim is stranger than fiction. it. is indeed.