The Thin Man

by Dashiell Hammett • 1933

Detective and mystery stories. Ex-detective Nick Charles plans to spend a quiet Christmas holed up in a hotel suite with his glamorous wife Nora, their pet Schnauzer and a case of good Scotch. But then a bullet-riddled corpse and a missing inventor (not to mention the attentions of a beautiful young woman) force him out of retirement and back into business. Trying to make sense of false leads, suspicious alibis and mistaken identities, Nick and Nora are thrown into a world of gangsters, hoodlums and speakeasies, where no-one can be trusted. Dashiell Hammett was credited with inventing the hardboiled crime novel, and this story of murder and mayhem in Manhattan, with its breakneck plot, snappy dialogue and the hard-drinking, wisecracking couple Nick and Nora, is one of his most thrillingly enjoyable mysteries. Set among the speakeasies of early 1930s Manhattan, The Thin Man is hard-boiled crime at its wisecracking best.