The Secretary: A Journey with Hillary Clinton to the Heart of American Power by Kim Ghattas: review Ghattas is more effective when she turns to sketching her subject. Her inside view of Clinton's travelling circus provides some nice anecdotes. Visiting one dignitary in Pakistan, Clinton is faced with the admission, "When I lived in London I used to throw rocks at the American embassy in Grosvenor Square." "Don't worry, Mr Governor," she replies, "so did I." But even here, although Ghattas is adept at conveying the dysfunctional nature of "Hillaryland" - the entourage is wholly transplanted from Clinton's unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2008 - she never quite penetrates it. Clinton is much too seasoned an operator to let down her guard, and Ghattas, whose main job was covering the Secretary of State for the BBC, seems to have had relatively few opportunities to convince her to lower it. Where the book really works is providing an insight into the nuts and bolts of modern shuttle diplomacy. As Clinton hops round the Middle East there's a priceless moment when the official in charge of her itinerary is informed they are going to Egypt. He has not been told until this point because he would have started making preparations - booking hotels, transport, et cetera. That would have leaked and created speculation that Clinton was arriving, in turn raising hopes of a major diplomatic breakthrough. All of which would have run the risk of derailing the entire process before it had started; at that point none of the participants had actually been consulted. This isn't the logistics of diplomacy, but the diplomacy of logistics. Where Ghattas also delivers is her framing of America's place in the world at the start of the 21st century. The popular perception is of a growing global backlash against US interventionism. As Gattas reveals, though, the real antipathy America faces is when the world feels America isn't intervening often enough. From the author's own bitterness at the US's failure to repeat the successful intervention in Lebanon in 1958, to the Pakistani journalists berating Clinton for attaching strings to a $7.5 billion aid package ("You do not have to take this money," she responds disarmingly) the refrain is similar all over the world. Why can't Clinton make bad things go away? Ghattas describes a state dinner in Pakistan. "If the US wins in Afghanistan," a Pakistani minister informs her, "Pakistan will be left out of the game; we can't have that." Pakistan isn't supporting the insurgents in Afghanistan because they want the US gone. They're supporting them through fear of America turning her back. "I can now see America for what it is, not what I want it to be," Ghattas concludes. Thanks to The Secretary, so can we. The Secretary by Kim Ghattas 368pp, Henry Holt, t £10.99 (PLUS £1.35 p&p) Buy now from Telegraph Books (RRP £10.99)