Tuesday, June 9, 2020

The Elusive 'Good Marriage' in Crime Fiction

From Crime Reads:
In Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man, former detective Nick Charles and his heiress wife Nora are drawn into helping the young, beautiful Dorothy Wynant find her father. Soon the quick-witted but hard-partying couple is entangled in the dark web of Dorothy’s family. 
Nick focuses on solving the mystery, while being boldly pursued by more than one woman during the course of his investigation—sometimes in front of Nora. Somehow, Nora’s faith in Nick isn’t undermined, though. She never has a moment of doubt and doesn’t express even a hint of jealousy. So blind is Nora’s faith that I did find myself thinking on more than one occasion: “Wake up, lady, there’s a fox in your hen house!” (Both Nick and Nora are very intoxicated, a lot of the time.) But in the end, Nora is right to trust Nick—he notices the beautiful women in a human way, but never really contemplates straying. And it seems, in part, Nora’s faith that inspires Nick to be so trustworthy. (Read more.)
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