The Thin Man

The Thin Man is Dashiell Hammett's 90-year-old story of a hard drinking former detective named Nick Charles who is pulled into the investigation of the murder of the secretary of a missing inventor. He and his wife are a charming but childless couple visiting Manhattan to avoid relatives in 1932. In a speakeasy on Christmas Eve, Nick is recognized by Dorothy Wynant.

Characters[edit]

• Nick Charles, 41 - married Nora 7 years ago
• Nora Charles, 26 - inherited her father's businesses
• Asta - their Schnauzer dog

• Julia Wolf, 32 - deceased secretary of Clyde Wynant
• Herbert Macaulay - Wynant's lawyer: "big, curly-haired, rosy-cheeked chap"
• Clyde Wynant - reclusive inventor, divorced from Mimi
• Dorothy Wynant, 19 or 20 - his daughter ("a small, pretty blond"), asks Nick to help find her father
• Gilbert Wynant, Dorothy's brother - reads and discusses macabre books
• Rosewater - tried to get money from Wynant

• Mimi Jorgenson - Wynant's ex-wife
• Chris Jorgenson - her husband

• Harrison Quinn - sweet on Dorothy
• Alice Quinn - Harrison's wife

• Shep Morelli - mobster
• Studsy Burke - mobster
• John Guild - cop
• Nunheim - informer

Society[edit]

Gilbert unknowingly provides some perspective on modern day Liberals:

• ... the people who lie the most are nearly always the clumsiest at it, and they're easier to fool with lies than most people, too, You'd think they'd be on the look-out for lies, but they seem to be the very ones that will believe almost anything at all.^[1]

So does Nora:

• What's the matter with them? Are they the first of a new race of monsters?^[2]

Notes[edit]