Thrilling Cities - by Ian Fleming (Paperback)

About the Book

From the jet-setting creator of James Bond--the worldly secret agent whose missions took him to some of the globe's most exotic locales--comes a whirlwind adventure up the side streets and down the back alleys of mid-twentieth-century Europe, Asia, and North America. These essays comprise Ian Flemings's highly personal impressions of fourteen of the world's most beguiling cities--from Vienna to Hong Kong to Chicago and beyond. With the trained eye of a master novelist, Fleming reveals the hidden places and secret intelligence that made hot spots like Macao and Monte Carlo come alive for him and other discerning travelers of the postwar era. From a geisha house of the nightclubs where high rollers gather to the driver's seat of a Ford Thunderbird as it rockets down the autobahn, Ian Fleming sketches vivid observations of fast lane life in the thrilling cities he loved best."--

Book Synopsis

A CAPTIVATING JOURNEY AROUND THE WORLD FROM THE CREATOR OF JAMES BOND

Ian Fleming's world travels and interests, as well as his journalism and wartime experiences, lent authority to everything he wrote. In 1959, the Sunday Times commissioned Fleming to write a series of dispatches from the world's most beguiling locales. The result was Thrilling Cities, a masterpiece of well-observed travelogue that stands ably alongside the author's Bond canon.

From Hong Kong to Honolulu, New York to Naples, he left the bright main streets for the back alleys, abandoning tourist sites in favor of underground haunts, and mingling with celebrities, gangsters and geishas. The result is a series of vivid snapshots of a mysterious, vanished world from a twentieth century Western perspective.

Just like his most famous fictional creation, Ian Fleming was a well-traveled man of the world who knew where to go to find excitement, adventure...and danger. In Thrilling Cities, he takes us along on a journey of international intrigue worthy of James Bond.

Review Quotes

"[Fleming] gathered material for his novels like a voracious travelling magpie: the people and places Fleming experienced on his Thrilling Cities tour in 1959 would [furnish] much of the backdrop and research for the five Bond novels and seven short stories that would follow." - The Times (UK)

"[Thrilling Cities] can--and will, compulsively--be read at a sitting." - Financial Times

"Fleming describes food precisely and enticingly." - Independent (UK)

"Invariably entertaining and often funny." - The Guardian (UK)

"[Fleming's] penchant for fast cars, stylish hotels, expensive alcohol and bizarre encounters brings a whiff of excitement to the narrative, which is vivid, shocking and exuberant by turns." - Good Book Guide