Someone, we know not who, once called Jadoo "the greatest book ever written on t
he black magic of the Orient." But we do know that there will never again be ano
ther book like it. Jadoo, a Hindi word meaning "Black Magic," captures a world t
hat is now lost to us-the strange, dark, mysterious world that was once called t
he "Orient." This story of a real-life Indiana Jones of the 1950s named John Kee
l contains everything but a trip to Venus in a flying saucer--a subject our news
man/explorer would become famous for a decade later. In Egypt, the fearless Keel
was cursed by a mummy and befriended members of a strange snake-charming cult.
In Iraq, he played Russian roulette with a notorious desert bandit and lived amo
ng the Yezidi devil-worshippers. Later, in India, he was buried alive and discov
ered the secret of the Indian rope trick, which he then performed for incredulou
s reporters in New Delhi. And in a riveting finale, he chased the Abominable Sno
wman through the little known Himalayan kingdom of Sikkim before being unceremon
iously booted out of Singapore for being "an undesirable alien."
