Decent, although nowhere near as good as Maltese Falcon. Characters are engaging though, although I found Nora to be shallower than I had initially hoped given Darby's interest ( )

The Thin Man is a murder mystery set in depression era New York. Well-heeled Nick and Nora Charles sleep most of the day away, party all night and drink 24/7. Nick is an old friend of the Richard Wynant who has gone missing at the same time his secretary is found shot to death in her apartment. Nick quickly becomes involved in solving the case, with the help of his wife Nora. They meet an eclectic cast of characters. Richard's hot-tempered wife, his odd children, abusive policemen and assorted gangsters. Through it all Nick and Nora keep a sense of humor, drink and work to crack the case.

Dashiell Hammett does a wonderful job of capturing the tone of the time and location he is writing in. He sets scenes and dialogue very well. However, The Thin Man is very much a novel of the time it was written. Casual misogyny is threaded throughout the book. There is no thought given about sexualizing or supplying drinks for a clearly distraught, troubled young woman. Instead of timeless, The Thin Man comes off as dated. It provides an interesting insight into the time period it was written but can come off as jarring at certain points. ( )

For the longest time I only knew Nick and Nora as crossword puzzle answers. I was glad to finally read this, but I didn't love it. It's very much of an era and it felt annoying and dated in so much of social interaction aspect. ( )

I was leaning against the bar in a speakeasy on Fifty-second Street, waiting for Nora to finish her Christmas shopping, when a girl got up from the table where she had been sitting with three other people and came over to me. She was small and blonde, and whether you looked at her face or at her body in powder blue sports clothes the result was satisfactory. "Aren't you Nick Charles?" she asked.

Well, I didn't care for any of the characters in the book, and found them much less amusing than I did in the movie. Narrating detective Nick Charles doesn't paint himself as above the crowd he's among and Nora's repetitively calling him a Greek didn't do her image much good, though otherwise Nick doesn't point out any tarnish. I didn't remember enough to be sure of "who done it" but I pretty quickly figured out who could not possibly have and why but probably due to vaguely remembered movie viewings. ( )