tomdingman

This was a big disappointment after having read The Maltese Falcon, in all its stark, atmospheric glory. If this is all Hammett had left to give in his later writing life, it's probably for the best that he gave it up. The main characters are so shallow and have such drunken and meaningless lives, I kept wanting to slap them upside the heads. But next to the completely dysfunctional family of the title character, they come off like Albert Schweitzer and Mother Teresa. On the plus side, Nick and Nora Charles have to be among the coolest names for a fictional married couple. And they do hae a cool dog named Asta. I read somewhere that the first, partially written version of The Thin Man was told from the point of view of the detective that Nick Charles was working with. I think *that* could have been a terrific book. That detective stood out among the secondary characters and we would have gotten more than enough of the Charles' weirdness from reading about his interactions with them.

2022-10-21 05:19