The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett

First published: 1934

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Detective and mystery

Time of plot: 1930’s

Locale: New York

Principal characters

• Mimi Jorgensen, Clyde Wynant’s former wife
• Dorothy Wynant, her daughter
• Gilbert Wynant, her son
• Christian Jorgensen, her present husband and Wynant’s former associate
• Nick Charles, a detective
• Nora Charles, his wife
• Herbert Macaulay, Wynant’s attorney
• Morelli, a gangster
• Arthur Nunheim, a former convict

The Story:

Nick Charles, a onetime detective and now a California lumberman, arrives in New York with his wife, Nora, for the Christmas holidays. He is drawn into investigating the murder of Julia Wolf, who was the secretary of Nick’s old client Clyde Wynant, a lunatic-fringe inventor whose wife, Mimi, divorced him in order to marry a man named Christian Jorgensen. Wynant is reported to be out of town, working on a new project, and Herbert Macaulay, Wynant’s attorney, has told police that he has not seen him since October, when Wynant gave him power of attorney.

The police suspect a number of people in Julia’s murder, including Mimi Jorgensen, her husband, a gangster named Morelli, Gil Wynant, and Clyde Wynant himself. Mimi had just returned from Europe and had gone to see Julia to get her former husband’s address because she needed more money to support their two children, twenty-year-old Dorothy and eighteen-year-old Gilbert; her new husband, Christian Jorgensen, had spent the large settlement Wynant had made at the time of their divorce. Mimi had arrived just in time for Julia to die in her arms.

Jorgensen had worked with Wynant several years earlier (at the time he was using a different name), and he believed that Wynant had not treated him fairly. In the course of the murder investigation, it is discovered that Jorgensen has a wife living in Boston and that he has married Mimi only to get Wynant’s money.

Morelli, the gangster, had once been fond of Julia. When he learns that Nick is on the case, Morelli goes to Nick and Nora’s apartment and, just as the police arrive, shoots Nick in the chest, a glancing shot that does not produce a serious wound. Nick refuses to press charges because the man is apparently in enough trouble already. The police beat Morelli but, not having a reason to hold him, release him the same day.

The members of the Wynant family do not have much love for one another. Gil is an odd young man who asks Nick about bizarre subjects such as incest and cannibalism. He is frequently found at keyholes, listening to private conversations.

The police also suspect Arthur Nunheim, who identified Julia Wolf’s body. When Nick goes with a detective named Guild to see Nunheim, they find him living in an extremely untidy apartment with a big, frowsy blond woman. In the presence of their callers, Nunheim and the woman insult each other until the woman leaves. Nunheim escapes from Nick through a back window, and he is reported murdered a little while later.

Macaulay reports that Wynant had made an appointment with him on the day the murder was committed, but he failed to appear. During the course of the investigation, several people receive communications from Wynant that seem to throw suspicion on Mimi and Jorgensen. One day, there is a false report that Wynant has tried to commit suicide in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Wynant has maintained a shop on First Avenue that the police have examined cursorily. Nick insists that they return and tear it apart, if necessary, for he is convinced that the place holds some clues. When the police do as he recommends, they notice that one section of the cement floor of the shop is newer than the rest; they tear it up and find the bones of a dead man, a cane, clothes that apparently would fit a larger man than Wynant, and a key chain with the initials D. W. Q.

Eventually, Nick accuses Macaulay of murdering Wynant, Julia, and Nunheim. He believes that Macaulay and Julia joined forces to get Wynant’s money, that Wynant went to Macaulay’s house in Scarsdale to accuse Macaulay of the plot, and that Macaulay killed his client there. Then, Nick reasons, Macaulay dismembered the body and brought it back to the workshop, where he buried it in the floor, covering it with new cement. The cane, the large-size clothes, and the key chain were intended to prevent the correct identification of the body.

Macaulay, according to Nick, renewed the lease on the shop and kept it vacant while, with a forged power of attorney and Julia’s help, he began to transfer Wynant’s fortune to his own accounts. Mimi’s return from Europe and her search for Wynant had precipitated matters, and when Nick arrived for the Christmas holiday and agreed to help Mimi find the missing inventor, Macaulay felt he would be safer with Julia dead. He himself had written the letters that seemed to be from Wynant. Nick theorizes that Macaulay killed Nunheim because the former convict had been near Julia’s apartment and might have heard the shots that killed her. When Nunheim demanded hush money from Macaulay, the lawyer murdered him to keep him quiet permanently.

So Nick outlines his case, but on that very day, Gilbert Wynant receives a letter that seems to be from his father, telling him to use an enclosed key to go to Julia’s apartment and look for an important paper between the pages of a certain book. Following the instructions in the letter, Gilbert enters the apartment, where a plainclothes policeman strikes him and handcuffs him before taking him to police headquarters. The boy shows the officials and Nick the letter he received, but the book and the paper it describes are fictitious. When Nick takes Gilbert home, he learns from Mimi that Wynant had just been there to give Mimi ten thousand dollars in bonds.

As it turns out, Macaulay, knowing the police would be in Julia’s apartment, had sent the letter to Gilbert in an attempt to shift the suspicion back to Wynant. Macaulay himself brought Wynant’s bonds to Mimi, making her promise to say that Wynant had brought them and thus give credence to his own story that Wynant is in town. Nick forces Mimi to admit the truth by explaining that Macaulay now has possession of Wynant’s fortune and that, if she continues to support him, she will never get more than occasional small sums, whereas if she stops shielding Macaulay she will get control of her former husband’s entire fortune. Jorgensen has meanwhile gone back to his legal wife in Boston. When Nick finishes explaining the case to Nora, she cannot help feeling that the business of a detective, based as it is on so much speculation, is at best unsatisfactory.

Bibliography

Bruccoli, Matthew J., and Richard Layman. Hardboiled Mystery Writers: Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Ross MacDonald. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2002. Handy reference volume includes interviews with the three mystery authors as well as some of their letters and previously published studies of their work. Illustrated.

Dooley, Dennis. Dashiell Hammett. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1984. Basic survey of Hammett’s work and life is specifically aimed at the general reader. Chapter 9, “Time’s Shadow,” provides an introduction to an interpretive reading of The Thin Man, which Dooley finds Hammett’s least successful novel.

Gale, Robert L. A Dashiell Hammett Companion. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2000. Encyclopedia-style resource includes a chronology of the major events in Hammett’s life along with alphabetically arranged entries that cover his works, characters, family, and acquaintances.

Gregory, Sinda. Private Investigations: The Novels of Dashiell Hammett. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1985. Study of Hammett’s five major novels includes a chapter titled “The Thin Man: The Detective Novel and the Comedy of Manners,” which argues that the novel successfully merges the two genres and constitutes a serious and artistically unified work.

Layman, Richard. Shadow Man: The Life of Dashiell Hammett. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981. Objective, readable, and carefully researched work is one of the most scholarly and reliable of the various biographies of Hammett. Provides a plot synopsis as well as valuable historical and biographical context for each of his novels.

Marling, William. Dashiell Hammett. Boston: Twayne, 1983. Concise and well-informed introductory survey is intended for the general reader. Provides a unified overview of all of Hammett’s novels. Brief chapter on The Thin Man gives a plot summary and some biographical context.

Mellen, Joan. Hellman and Hammett: The Legendary Passion of Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett. New York: HarperCollins, 1996. Although primarily a biographical study of the relationship of the two writers, this scrupulously researched work provides insight into the background of Hammett’s fiction.

Metress, Christopher, ed. The Critical Response to Dashiell Hammett. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994. Collection of essays begins with an introduction that surveys the history of Hammett criticism and then presents a series of excerpts from reviews, commentaries, and critical discussions of each novel as well as a section dealing more generally with Hammett’s work. The section on The Thin Man reprints a journal article on the novel by George J. Thompson.