The Thin Man introduces Nick and Nora Charles, New York’s coolest crime-solving couple.
Nick retired from detecting after his wife inherited a tidy sum, but six years later, a pretty blonde spies him at a speakeasy and asks for his help finding her father, an eccentric inventor who was once Nick’s client.
Nick can no more resist the case than a morning cocktail or a good fight, and soon he and Nora are caught in a complicated web of confused identities and cold-blooded murder.
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"Hilarious. Easy and quick read. It was definitely a page turner and though I had guesses the mystery early on there were so many twists and turns that towards the end I didn't know what to think any more. Why aren't there more books like this anymore? I like it when authors can put your head in a swivel."
— Carmen (5 out of 5 stars)
“The most breathless of Hammett’s stories.”
— Sinclair Lewis, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature“None of [Hammett’s] creations proved as endearing as Nick and Nora Charles, the wisecracking crime fighters of The Thin Man, his final novel.”
— Washington Post“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…Try it for a great sense of the good life in the New York of the 1930s.”
— Amazon.com" One of the rare cases where the movie was better than the book. The comparison is somewhat unfair to the book. However, the movie was the reason I wanted to read the book. I felt like the book lacked a lot of the wit and charm of the film. The characters also seemed darker without a lot of dimension. "
— Brittany, 2/12/2014" Read this one as part of One Denver and book club... glad I read it but the genre is tired now--too bad. "
— Alison, 2/12/2014" Better than the movie. And that's saying quite a lot. "
— Zach, 2/9/2014" Loved the relationship between Nick Charles and his wife Nora. The book over all fell kind of flat for me. "
— Em, 2/7/2014" Good hard-boiled noir in the grand tradition of Raymond Chandler where Nick Charles seems to "need" a drink every 5 minutes, bodies pile up and nobody's quite above suspicion. Enjoyable romp. "
— Ram, 2/1/2014" I read this book many years ago and loved Hammett's writting - I was however not as thrilled with this audio version. I found myself stuggling with the narrator's voice. It didn't mesh with the story to me - it didn't sound the way I thought it sould. So 5 stars for the writing 3 stars for the reading. "
— Colette, 1/24/2014" The main characters from this book are always in crossword puzzles, so I decided to read it. You can tell it was written awhile ago, because there's a lot of drinking and cops roughing up prisoners. However, the story is good and he keeps you guessing to the end. "
— Melissa, 1/20/2014" I like his writing. The characters in this one are very compelling. "
— Nathan, 1/18/2014" I've seen all the movies which made me want to read the book that started it all. The movies take great liberties with the book. I still love the movies but join the chorus of "the book was better." "
— Vincent, 12/24/2013" Noir at its best. Man, if I could write dialogue like that! "
— Sweetman, 12/20/2013" Hmmm...I think I actually liked the movie better. "
— Caleb, 11/27/2013Dashiell Hammett (1894–1961) was an American author of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. He is widely regarded as one of the finest mystery writers of all time. In addition to The Maltese Falcon, his pioneering novels include Red Harvest, The Dain Curse, The Glass Key, and the #1 New York Times bestseller The Thin Man.
William Dufris attended the University of Southern Maine in Portland-Gorham before pursuing a career in voice work in London and then the United States. He has won more than twenty AudioFile Earphones Awards, was voted one of the Best Voices at the End of the Century by AudioFile magazine, and won the prestigious Audie Award in 2012 for best nonfiction narration. He lives with his family in Maine.