The Thin Man
Ratings31
Average rating3.9
15
Ratings31
Average rating3.9
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.
Reviews with the most likes.
Hardly recognisable as the work of the man who wrote The Maltese Falcon and Red Harvest. Deftly executed,light-hearted, slightly self-mocking, but always entertaining. A feat of frightening versatility from the master of the hard-boiled.
Lies piled on half-truths
poor unwilling detective,
solve the case with booze.
Um, I´m thinking my liver is pickled after reading this book. They all drank so much. If they took out every mention of getting a drink they wouldn´t have enough pages left to make a book.
Anyway, I found this book kinda dull, that family was so crazy and I figured out what was up with the ¨thin man¨ too early. blah. I need a drink.
As far as mysteries go, this one was a bit hard to follow. The clues aren't laid out for you, as with most hard boiled mysteries I suppose, but it got repetitive. Here's how it goes: he has some cynical banter with his wife, drinks, comforts Dorothy, talks to the police, goes somewhere else, starts over again. I give it credit because the resolution was interesting and satisfying, though I don't feel I was given the tools to guess it on my own.
Update: This book was the basis of a very popular series of movies from the 1930s, more worth watching than reading the book.
