The Thin Man is a detective novel set in New York City during the Christmas season of 1932, in the last days of Prohibition in the United States. The main characters are Nick Charles, a former private detective, and Nora, his socialite wife. Couple of days later, Nick sees a newspaper report of the shooting of Wynant's secretary Julia Wolf. The murder case is being led by Lieutenant John Guild, who suspects Julia's murderer was her new lover, the gangster Shep Morelli. That night Morelli breaks into Nick's hotel suite to insist that he was not the killer. Guild recognizes Nick from a decade before and wants him to help with the investigations, especially in helping locate Wynant, who is supposedly developing a new invention in a secret location. Though reluctant, Nick is further drawn into the affair and begins his own investigation.