The Thin Man (Hardcover)

by Dashiell Hammett (Author)
Key Phrases: Julia Wolf, Aunt Alice, Dorothy Wynant (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Penzler Pick, December 1999: In the world of literature, there are many famous books that few people have actually read. Do you know anyone who has read Ulysses cover to cover? Tom Jones? The Good Earth? When it comes to mysteries, however, the greatest books are not just titles that rattle around in the head. They have been read and often reread. We know the characters, and we know the stories. Everyone has read The Maltese Falcon and The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and The Thin Man.

What? You haven't read Dashiell Hammett's last and funniest book? Sure, you saw the movie--in fact, you've seen the whole series--but you somehow never got around to reading the book? You should. All the wit of Nick and Nora is there, and the plot from the book needed no change to make the film one of the greatest American mystery comedies ever.

You probably already know that the Thin Man is not actually Nick Charles, but Clyde Wynant, a successful inventor who has disappeared. When his daughter asks for help in finding him, Nick refuses. He's retired from being a private detective, having married the very wealthy Nora, and he is intent on spending his days and nights drinking, dancing, playing, and looking after his wife's fortune. Nora persuades him to take the case because she thinks it would be great fun. And it is--especially for the reader. While generally regarded as the most lightweight of Hammett's five novels (it is), it is also the second most entertaining (after The Maltese Falcon). Try it for a great sense of the good life in the New York of the 1930s. --Otto Penzler

Product Description
Retirement suited Nick. He had a pretty wife, a Schnauzer and a taste for good scotch. All it took was a little persuasion: four bullets, a blonde, the newspapers, the cops, and a junked-up hoodlum in his bedroom. Nick Charles, former trans-American detective agency ace, was back in business. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 259 pages
• Publisher: Otto Penzler; Facsimile edition (July 8, 1996)
• ASIN: B000023VWU
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,721,919 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hammett's last - a good read, July 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Thin Man (Paperback)

I believe it was F. Scott Fitzgerald who once said, "Hammett is one of those good writers ruined by Hollywood." This book shows Fitzgerald's quote in action.

Don't misunderstand me, 'The Thin Man' is an excellent story. It's amuzing, tense, and contains possibly Hammett's most memorable characters, but it's also a complete departure from his previous novels. In a way, 'The Thin Man' is a farewell. Here we have a once hard-boiled detective, Nick Charles, who has settled down with his wise-cracking wife, Nora, and doesn't want anything to do with his previous work. Instead, Nick drinks, and drinks, and drinks, and goes to parties, and hosts parties, and the like. Whenever anyone questions Nick over the case that he's rumored to be working, Nick simply claims that he doesn't want anything to do with being a detective and leaves it at that.

This being Hammett's final novel, I believe that it an all too valid assumption that Hammett was using the character of Nick to symbolize himself and his own mentality. To connect this with Fitzgerald's comment, following the publication of 'The Thin Man', some movie studio handed Hammett a check for something like $40,000 for use of the characters, cementing his literary decrepitude, and he never worked again.

But it is a good read, very good, and while I would have liked to have given it the full five stars, i've chosen to remain with four, as 'The Thin Man' just doesn't compare with many of Hammett's other classics.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Real Nick and Nora, July 7, 1999

By	Tom From NY "Tom From NY" (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Thin Man (Paperback)

Forget those movies. They took a grimly funny novel about a group of predatory monsters and turned it into a series of light comedies. As splendid as William Powell and Myrna Loy are, they cannot hold a candle to the Nick and Nora portrayed in this novel.

Hammett did not write a novel about a sophisticated couple who genteelly solve a murder while pouring cocktails and trading quips. He wrote a dark novel about an ex-detective who has married a wildly wealthy woman, and wants to spend the rest of his life managing her money. He is only faintly connected to the murders, having known the victim and his family briefly several years before, and wants nothing to do with the whole business. He is continually dragged in, however, and very nearly becomes a victim himself. Even a cursory reading of the novel should demonstrate that Hammett was up to much more than a series of one-liners with detective interruptions. Why else would Hammett, one of the most economical of authors, bring the novel to a halt to include a case history of Alfred Packer, the only American convicted of the crime of cannibalism?

There is much more here than Hollywood, or anyone else that I know of, has yet realized.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One of a kind crime novel, December 6, 1999

By	Jeanine (Singapore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Thin Man (Paperback)

My first Dashiell Hammett book and after reading it I decided I'm hooked on his writing. The plot is tight no doubt, but the ending especially left me thoroughly impressed at the skillful crafting of the story. That aside, the playful banter between Nick and Nora Charles amused, and surely the dry wit of Nick will elicit a chuckle. Add to the whole mix a bunch of crazy characters like the Wynant family who can't seem to talk straight, and you get an absorbing whodunnit with a generous dose of humour.