News from Tartary is the account of an illegal journey from Peking to Kashmir in 1935. The physical resilience which took companions Fleming and Ella Maillart across some of the world's most inaccessible mountains and deserts was matched by their bravery and luck. China was caught up in a vicious civil war, and local Muslim warlords were allying themselves with Soviet Russia. None of the foreign journalists who had attempted to report from the region in the previous eight years had come out alive. The relationship between Peter (foreign correspondent for The Times) and the adventurous Swiss traveller Ella becomes a source of gentle fascination. For beneath their easygoing charm, both had that sliver of ice required of a writer and had already travelled alone in the region, setting down their earlier adventures in One's Company and Turkestan Solo.
