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, in "The Sunday Times", wrote that "Mr Fleming's prose arouses the "voyeur" that lurks in all but the best of us", and considered that the book remained "supremely readable" throughout. Writing for "The Times Literary Supplement", Xan Fielding found the title of the book to be misleading, noting that apart from a very small win at the casinos of Las Vegas, "his personal experience of thrills seems to have been just as limited everywhere else on his itinerary." Fielding considered that the cities Fleming visited had the potential for thrills, and hoped that the material gathered was used in Fleming's literary works with thrills included.