The novel, like the rest of Hammett's work, is sometimes criticized for a lack of character development. The story still has a hard edge which is only enhanced by the bawdy, hard-drinking, very funny and loving human beings involved at the centre. Parker with his Spenser novels and at the lowest level by the Hart to Hart television series.īut lest it appear Hammett has betrayed the hardboiled detective tradition-which he himself had only recently invented-note his spartan, no-frills writing style is still intact. It's a charming concept that has been much imitated over the years, at the highest level by Robert B. The couple keep the martinis and the sardonically affectionate witticisms comin as he works his way through the mystery. And Nora is quite content, even intrigued, with her hubby's nefarious occupation and his familiarity with the criminal classes. And he's quite content with his new status.

Nick Charles has married into high society with Nora-or at least higher than the lowlifes he previously mingled with. And there is genuine attachment between wife and husband. But there is also a wife, the unflappable Nora Charles. Sure, there's a somewhat jaded private eye, one Nick Charles, as well as a perplexing murder to solve, incompetent cops and shady underworld characters. If you've read or heard about Dashiell Hammett's hardboiled detective fiction, you may not be prepared for what you'll find in The Thin Man. I think, but I only think, I know a few of the reasons: he wanted to do a new kind of work he was sick for many of those years and getting sicker.CRITIQUE | THE MOVIES Hardboiled with a soft centre I have been asked many times over the years why he did not write another novel after The Thin Man. Lillian Hellman, in an introduction to a compilation of Hammett's five novels, contemplated several explanations for Hammett's retirement as a novelist: The Thin Man was Hammett's last published novel. It is about a quarter of the length of the finished book.

A Thin Man television series followed in the 1950s.Īn early draft of the story, written several years before the published version and now in print in several collections of Hammett's work, does not mention the main characters of the novel, Nick and Nora Charles and ends after ten chapters. Although he never wrote a sequel, the book became the basis for a successful six-part film series, which also began in 1934 with The Thin Man and starred William Powell and Myrna Loy. The Thin Man is a detective novel by Dashiell Hammett, originally published in Redbook. Freebase Rate this definition: 0.0 / 0 votes

The thin man book series