News from Tartary is the account of an illegal, six-month journey from Beijing to Kashmir in 1935. The physical resilience which took Fleming and his Swiss companion, Ella Maillart, across some of the world s most inaccessible mountain passes and desert regions was matched by bravery and luck. China was then caught up in a vicious civil war while trying to repel the invading Japanese, while in eastern Turkestan charismatic Muslim warlords were allying themselves with Soviet Russia. None of the foreign journalists who had attempted to report from this region over the previous eight years had come out alive. The relationship between Peter (reporting for The Times) and the adventurous Ella, with their different abilities and character, becomes a source of gentle fascination. For beneath their easy-going charm, both had that sliver of ice required of a writer and had already travelled alone in the region, setting down their separate adventures in Turkestan Solo and One s Company.
