Beau Ideal is a 1927 novel by P. C. Wren. It was the second sequel to Beau Geste.
It was adapted into the 1931 film Beau Ideal.
The tale of Otis Vanbrugh, brother of Hank and Mary Vanbrugh, who feature in Beau Sabreur. They go away from a despot father in Wyoming and make the Grand Tour, which after meeting a French Colonel extends to Africa, there adventures starts and get closely knit with those narrated in Beau Sabreur and Beau Geste, in this third volume and second sequel we definitely know what happened the night the Blue Water was stolen and by whom. As always secondaries are great aka Raoul d'Auray de Redon an unsung hero of the French Secret Service.
Mainly the plot revolves around the devotion of Otis for Isobel, he is asked by Isobel Geste to find her husband John, who has disappeared in Africa trying to find his old friends Hank and Buddy. Otis, who was a childhood playmate of John and who is in love with Isobel, enlists in the foreign legion with the idea of commit a fault who will sent him to rejoin a penal battalion and find John.
Arabs raid the section of the penal battalion and capture Otis and John. The Arab girl the Death Angel falls in love with Otis.
All is stitched and finished in "Spanish Maine". Fifth volume of the adventures of John Geste (the fourth "Good Gestes" is a collection of short stories, and there is also another short one in "Flawed Blades").