Beau Geste, with eBook, Percival Wren
Beau Geste, with eBook, Percival Wren
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Beau Geste, with eBook

Author: Percival Wren

Narrator: David Case

Unabridged: 14 hr 53 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 07/23/2009

Categories: Fiction, Classic

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

A column of French Legionnaires finds one of their fortresses manned by dead men. It looks like the sergeant was killed by one of his own troops. Who could have done it?

A flashback then unravels the mystery of the three English Geste brothers. The brothers, orphaned early in life, are raised by an aunt. Their raucous youths are filled with the literature of adventure and ritualized horseplay centered around these myths and legends. So when the family's prized Blue Water sapphire turns up missing, each of the young men confesses to being the thief in order to protect the others, and one by one they head off to join the French Foreign Legion. The three brothers meet up in the deserts of Africa, where they fall under the command of the malevolent Sergeant Lejaune. Not content to merely be a martinet, Lejaune sets his sights on stealing the jewel, which rumor holds to be in the brothers' possession. Meanwhile, the unruly troops he commands are planning a mutiny, and the marauding Tauregs pin this badly outnumbered and bitterly divided unit of Legionnaires at Fort Zinderneuf. The ensuing drama plays itself out as the French forces battle overwhelming odds. Ultimately, only a handful of men survive to discover the truth behind the Blue Water's disappearance.

A classic, rip-roaring tale of adventure!

About Percival Wren

Percival Wren was a British writer, mostly of adventure fiction, who is remembered best for Beau Geste, a much-filmed book involving the French Foreign Legion in North Africa, and its sequels, Beau Sabreur and Beau Ideal.

Born in Devonshire England in 1885, Wren was a collateral descendant of the famous British seventeenth-century architect Sir Christopher Wren. His literary influences included Frederick Marryat, R. M. Ballantyne, G. A. Henty, and H. Rider Haggard. After graduating with an MA from Oxford, Percival traveled the world for five years before joining the British Calvary. From there, he went on to join the French Foreign Legion, working in India for the Bombay government for ten years. World events saw him returning to active service during World War I with the India Army in East Africa, after which he settled and married in London in 1917. He lived out the remainder of his life in England concentrating on his literary career. He died in 1941.

Wren produced almost fifty titles during his lifetime, including The Snake and The Sword, Sinbad the Soldier, The Disappearance of General Jason, and The Uniform of Glory.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jon

Questions of duty and decency as shield over a loved one are examined in this wonderful novel of adventure and friendship. Michael, Digby and John (the Geste brothers) run away to join the French Foreign Legion in Algeria after the "Blue Water" sapphire disappears and Lady Brandon (the aunt who has......more

Goodreads review by Jim

I've read that a classic is a book that is never finished saying what it has to say. I further define one by it being a great story hidden behind awful, dated writing that has been butchered by Hollywood, & forced upon too-young souls by sadistic English teachers. This book escaped half of the usual......more

Goodreads review by Warren

The opening premise of this classic adventure is quite intriguing and sets this up as more of a mystery than a military action yarn. But once we are introduced to our main heroes, the Geste brothers, I started to lose interest. There is something about overly romanticized tales about European coloni......more