Much more than I expected, much better than I had a right to expect. I hoped it would be entertaining and exciting, but I didn't expect to learn so much. The information ranges from ancient Roman engineering techniques to Cartesian geometry, from the price of three tables and thirty chairs at the Tweed Courthouse ($3.2 million in 2001 dollars) to the importance of Jupiter in protecting earth from comets. Thomas Hobbes, Idi Amin, FDR, Typhoid Mary, Pericles, Le Corbusier, the Chinatown Tongs, Taki 183, Malcolm X, Jackie Kennedy, Ted Williams and Henry Hudson all find their way into the narrative. The economics, politics, history, demographics, architecture and spirit of New York are between the pages of this slim volume, worked seamlessly into a series of adventures that were as terrifying as they were thrilling.