About The Book

Dashiell Hammett was a crime writer who elevated the genre to true literature, and The Thin Man was Hammett’s last—and most successful—novel. Following the enormous success of The Thin Man movie in 1934, Hammett was commissioned to write stories for additional films. He wrote two novellas for the movies that became After the Thin Man and Another Thin Man, in which his classic characters, retired private investigator Nick Charles and his former debutante wife, Nora, return home to find Nora’s family gardener murdered, and the couple are pulled back into another deadly game of cat and mouse. These are two fully satisfying “Thin Man” stories, with classic, barbed Hammett dialogue and fully developed characters.

Neither of these stories has been previously published in their entirety. Return of the Thin Man is a hugely entertaining read that brings back the classic characters created by one of the greatest mystery writers who ever lived. This book is essential reading for Hammett’s millions of fans and for a new generation of mystery readers the world over.

Praise

“Hammett’s prose was clean and entirely unique. His characters were as sharply and economically defined as any in American fiction.” —The New York Times

“This first unabridged appearance of two Nick and Nora Charles ‘novellas’ by Hammett should be an occasion for delight, and it is.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Read Return of the Thin Man and rediscover why Dashiell Hammett was the peerless master of crime fiction in all its dark and bloody glory.” —New York Journal of Books

“A volume no fan of Hammett’s, of Nick and Nora Charles, of ‘The Thin Man’ series should even think of doing without.” —The Huffington Post

Excerpt

Lieutenant Abrams asks the assembled company: “346 White Street mean much of anything to anybody?” Nobody says it does. He asks his men: “Got all their names and addresses?”

“Yes.”

Abrams: “All right. You people can clear out. We’ll let you know when we want to see you again.”

The guests start to leave as if glad to go, especially a little group of men who have been herded into a corner by a couple of policemen, but this group is halted by one of the policemen, who says, “Take it easy, boys. We’ve got a special wagon waiting outside for you. We been hunting for some of you for months.” They are led out between policemen.

Lieutenant Abrams, alone in the room with Nick and Nora, looks at Nick and says: “Well? I didn’t mean that exactly. I mean what do you think all this adds up to? He’s killed coming to see you. He knows you two, and Mrs. Charles’s relations, and that’s all we know he does know.What do you make of it?”

Nick, handing him a drink: “Maybe he was a fellow who didn’t get around much.”