Berlin and told him many of the details about Operation Stopwatch, the Anglo-American attempt to tunnel into the Soviet-occupied zone to tap into landline communication of the Soviet Army headquarters. In comparison to Hamburg, Fleming thought Berlin was "sinister". Fleming moved on to Vienna and found the city boring, calling it "clean, tidy, God-fearing", before travelling into Geneva. He met Ingrid Etler, a journalist and old girlfriend, who was resident in the city and who provided him with much of his background material. Fleming then travelled to Les Avants, the villa near Montreux of his close friend Noël Coward, where Coward introduced Fleming to Charlie Chaplin. Fleming had asked Coward to set up the meeting as Chaplin was writing his memoirs and Leonard Russell had asked Fleming to secure the rights for the paper; Fleming was successful in his approach and the memoirs were later serialised in the paper. Fleming's wife Ann had joined him in Les Avants and the couple then moved on to Naples, where Fleming interviewed Lucky Luciano, finding him "a neat, quiet, grey-haired man with a tired good-looking face." After Naples, the Flemings moved to Monte Carlo, the final stop on Fleming's journey; Despite spending time at the casino, Fleming thought Monte Carlo somewhat seedy. The second series of articles started on 31 July 1960 with Fleming's trip to Hamburg, and finished with his visit to Monte Carlo. Overall the series was considered popular and successful. Release and reception Thrilling Cities was first published in the UK by Jonathan Cape, in November 1963; the book was 223 pages long and cost 30 shillings. The cover was designed by artist Paul Davis and shows "a surreal version of Monte Carlo". For the US market, the book was released in June 1964 through New American Library and cost $4.95. Fleming's comments on New York were so cutting that when the book was published in the US, the American publishers asked if he could tone down the wording. Fleming refused, but instead wrote the short story "007 in New York" to be included in the US version by way of recompense. Reviews The reviews for Thrilling Cities were broadly good. The critic for The Times thought that Fleming's style was "no nonsense over fine writing", and summed up the book as "Fleming's smooth, sophisticated, personally conducted tours", noting that the author "has a knack of enjoying himself". John Raymond,