Denisa Lady Newborough, who has died aged 74, was many things: wire-walker, nightclub girl, nude dancer, air pilot. She only refused to be two things — a whore and a spy — “and there were attempts to make me both…”’

So begins one of the greatest Telegraph obituaries ever – and the opening sentence of Lady Newborough's racy memoir, Fire in My Blood isn't too bad either:

‘I just love myself in black velvet and mink, and I know diamonds suit me. So do rubies which tone in with my hair, and emeralds that clash, but pleasantly, with it. And I have never believed that jewels, any more than motor cars, can be called vulgar just because they are gigantic.’

A mostly rollicking ride through the clubs and hotels, casinos and castles of Budapest, Sofia, Paris and more, featuring a cast of incredible, incredibly rich and even more incredibly infamous characters, including the Kings of Bulgaria and Romania, Hitler and Mussolini, Marlene Dietrich and Alexander Korda and more, this is, for the most part, a fascinating – if elusive – memoir, in which Lady Newborough, while not shying away from her exploits, does everything to suggest they're everything but what they are. At first my head was spinning from the speed and pace of everything that happens to her – and if even half of them are true, it's an amazing story – and even if they aren't, it's an amazing story. 

There are duels, naked dances, big wins at the card table, dalliances with twins, midnight escapes, wild parties and a glimpse behind the red velvet curtain into a strange, decadent, shady world between the wars, in which the rich partied as if the world was ending, while all around them, it did for many, starving and destitute during the Great Depression.

Yet for all Denisa's carelessness and thoughtlessness, her promiscuity and superficiality, she comes off as a surprisingly likeable character – almost Becky Sharpean, but with more heart. And a dash more va-va-voom.

But after a while, the names became a blur, the wins and losses at the roulette wheel did too, and as I started to lose track of whom was whom – and most importantly, Lady Newborough – still facing bankruptcy proceedings after her divorce from the dissolute Lord Newborough – didn't go any further than the eve of their ill-fated wedding. Disappointing, given the travails she faced in middle age and the way she overcame them.

A very entertaining book – almost right up until the end – and testimony to Twain's famous dictum about truth being stranger than fiction!