Round the world with Ian Fleming—even on paper the prospect is enticing. Hong Kong, Macao, Tokyo, Honolulu, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, Chicago, New York, Hamburg, Berlin, Vienna, Geneva, Naples, Monte Carlo—these are his 'thrilling cities'. He writes about them brilliantly, impressionistically, as no one else would or could, ostensibly for our entertainment yet not without giving us the benefit of some expert observation.

'All my life', he says, 'I have been interested in adventure and, abroad, I have enjoyed the frisson of leaving the wide, well-lit streets and venturing up back alleys in search of the hidden authentic pulse of towns. It was perhaps this habit that turned me into a writer of thrillers, and, by the time I had made the two journeys that produced these essays, I had certainly got into the way of looking at people and places and things through a thriller-writer's eye.'

It is not a habit commonly shared with more ordinary or leisurely travellers. Their interests have been studied in supplements of 'Incidental Intelligence' to each chapter. Idiosyncratic information is therefore included in a most original and exciting travel book.