214:, but the accompanying clothes of a fat man are largely untouched, as are a walking-stick and initialled belt buckle. Nick deduces that they were left to make people believe that the body was not that of the fit but very thin Wynant. He confronts Mimi and makes her realise that Macaulay has been swindling Wynant, fobbing her off with only part of his money when she can now claim it all. Macaulay was the murderer of Wynant, of his accomplice Julia, and of Nunheim. When the greedy woman turns on Macaulay, Nick knocks him out before he can draw a gun and turns him over to Guild.
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300:": "I sit in one of the dives/ On Fifty-second Street…As the clever hopes expire/ Of a low dishonest decade". The low dishonest years of American Prohibition had delivered a hard-drinking climate in which dishonesty, double-dealing and hypocrisy were the social norm, providing the prevailing theme of distrust and disregard for values among most of the characters involved in Hammett's novel. For Auden, writing on the eve of
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and Nick a respected member of a
Manhattan detective agency. Guild would like Nick to help with his investigations, especially in helping locate Wynant, who is supposedly developing a new invention in a secret location. Though Nick is reluctant, he is further drawn into the affair by his former army
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Nick and
Lieutenant Guild go to question Nunheim but he manages to get away down a fire escape and is later found shot with the same gun used to kill Julia. A new suspect emerges when it is discovered that Christian Jorgenson's real identity is Victor Rosewater, Wynant's former associate, who had
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close to deserting her after they have run through her substantial divorce settlement. The murder case is being led by
Lieutenant John Guild, who suspects Julia's murderer was her new lover, the gangster Shep Morelli. That night Morelli breaks into Nick's hotel suite to insist that he was not the
323:. I do not know. 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. But he kept his work, and his plans for work, in angry privacy and even I would not have been answered if I had ever asked.
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During all this time, Nick realises that the search for Wynant had been pursued everywhere but in the premises he had closed up before leaving three months before. On visiting them he discovers a body under a newly cemented floor. It has been buried in
206:. Mimi has only recently arrived from abroad, intent on getting more money from Wynant. Now her son Gilbert produces a letter from him and later she informs Nick that Wynant had called at her apartment, bringing deeds and a check to pay her expenses.
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The germ of the novel was a 1930 draft, set in San
Francisco and featuring a private detective named John Guild on the trail of the missing scientist Walter Irving Wynant who may have murdered his secretary. Three years later Hammett abandoned the
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was released within five months of the novel's successful first appearance. Though
Hammett never completed a new novel himself, the success of its adaptation formed the basis for what became a linked six-film series, as well as for
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Two days later, Nick sees a newspaper report of the shooting of Wynant's secretary (and one-time mistress), Julia Wolf. The body was discovered by Wynant's former wife Mimi, now married to the younger
Christian Jorgenson, a
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killer; however, he is spotted by the police, who now break in. Nick has time to knock Nora out of the way and distract
Morelli enough so that he is only slightly wounded before the crook is arrested.
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wife. Nick, the son of a Greek immigrant, now spends most of his time in San
Francisco managing his late father-in-law's businesses in between heavy drinking sessions. While in a New York
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buddy
Herbert Macaulay, who is Wynant's attorney and says he has orders to get money to him via the inventor's secretary. Nick learns more about Julia Wolf while drinking at a
173:, Charles meets Dorothy, the now grown-up daughter of a former client, Clyde Wynant, who says she is trying to contact the father she has not seen since her parents' divorce.
371:(1939). These scripts, discovered amongst Hammett's papers in 2011, together with instructions by Hammett for incorporation of additional elements written by screenwriters
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379:, were edited by Hammett's biographer Richard Layman in collaboration with Hammett's granddaughter Julie M. Rivett and published as novellas under the title
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named Sudsy Burke arrested by Nick years before, tells him that Julia had been seen drinking there with a former burglar, Arthur
Nunheim.
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paid Hammett $ 21,000 (£13,100) for the movie rights. Shot in just 14 days and fairly faithful to the original,
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However, the change in direction seemingly promised by Hammett's new lightness of touch did not prevent
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Although this change of direction was a success with the public, Hammett never followed it up.
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quarrelled with him and sworn to get even. It later emerges also that his marriage to Mimi was
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I have been asked many times over the years why he did not write another novel after
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Studsy Burke: a former safe-cracker turned speakeasy proprietor
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Claire Black, The Return of the Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett,
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Guild recognises Nick from a decade before, when Guild was a
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David Lehman, "The Radical Pessimism of Dashiell Hammett",
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was dedicated, later speculated on the reasons for this:
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Clyde Wynant, the titular Thin Man: an eccentric inventor
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Shep Morelli: a gangster and childhood friend of Julia
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16:1934 detective novel by Dashiell Hammett
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245:Christian Jorgenson, Mimi's new husband
1113:Works originally published in Redbook
233:Mimi Jorgenson: Clyde's divorced wife
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416:Dick Lochte, "Before The Thin Man",
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451:. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1965.
281:style of his draft in favour of a
248:Herbert Macaulay: Clyde's attorney
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477:James Lileks (22 January 2016).
266:John Guild: a homicide detective
159:Prohibition in the United States
485:from the original on 2021-12-14
447:The Novels of Dashiell Hammett
407:, Greenwood Press, 2000, p.248
236:Julia Wolf: Wynant's secretary
227:Nora Charles: Nick's rich wife
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479:"The Thin Man TV intro 1958"
405:A Dashiell Hammett Companion
254:Alice Quinn: Harrison’s wife
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1103:Novels by Dashiell Hammett
224:Nick Charles: the narrator
38:Cover of the first edition
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1098:Novels set in the 1930s
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381:Return of the Thin Man
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418:Salon, 17 April, 2000
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272:A change in direction
147:Nick and Nora Charles
1088:1934 American novels
1029:Song of the Thin Man
848:Song of the Thin Man
504:Google Books preview
493:– via YouTube.
431:The American Scholar
19:For other uses, see
1093:Fiction set in 1932
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997:After the Thin Man
808:The Maltese Falcon
784:After the Thin Man
744:The Maltese Falcon
690:Watch on the Rhine
669:After the Thin Man
637:The Continental Op
606:The Maltese Falcon
466:, 10 November 2012
362:After the Thin Man
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346:television series
298:September 1, 1939
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163:private detective
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980:Film series
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892:(1982 film)
884:(1977 film)
720:adaptations
661:Screenplays
592:Red Harvest
434:, Fall 2015
365:(1936) and
290:W. H. Auden
1082:Categories
630:Characters
540:Faded Page
387:References
279:hardboiled
218:Characters
1057:Myrna Loy
876:(partner)
642:Sam Spade
383:in 2012.
348:aired on
212:quicklime
171:speakeasy
167:socialite
97:hardcover
72:Published
66:Detective
1040:See also
542:(Canada)
483:Archived
338:the film
204:bigamous
192:low-life
54:Language
21:Thin Man
970:Musical
889:Hammett
867:Related
294:subtext
142:Redbook
95:Print (
57:English
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489:20 May
187:rookie
179:gigolo
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75:1934 (
44:Author
955:Novel
881:Julia
104:Pages
62:Genre
718:Film
491:2018
375:and
153:Plot
538:at
350:NBC
334:MGM
135:by
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