Pierre Benoit is well known for his L’Atlantide, a lost world story that couples the classic venues of pulp adventure with the mood of post-war (First World War, that is) disillusionment.
L’Atlantide is probably the most literary descendants of H. Rider-Haggard‘s She.
The Gobi Desert was published twenty-two years after L’Atlantide, in 1941, and in part it follows the same basic plot.
Two men in the desert, looking from some elusive treasure, while competing for the attentions of a ravishingly beautiful woman.
In L’Atlantide the prized possession is Atlantis itself and the femme fatale is the Queen of Atlantis, in The Goby Desert it is a white tiger, the mythical felis alba, and the object of desire is Alzire, an exotic dancer1.
Karavansara 