The Fat Man

I watched this last night and loved it. Dashiell Hammett's most famous Fat Man was Gutman played unforgettably by Sydney Greenstreet but this is his second Fat Man as gourmand detective. He's named Runyan. He's not Damon Runyon.

In Romania the word fat is used all the time, but in England in some  circles it is forbidden. I don't know why.

I read The Thin Man aged 11 on my first foreign holiday, in Belgium as you ask. I wasn't impressed though I had loved the films. Rereading it last year I thought it wonderful which might mean it is or that I am much less highbrow, which I am by several country miles. At 11 I read Sir Thomas Malory and Edmund Spenser for fun.

Rochefoucauld said there are happy marriages but no delightful ones - the one exception is that in The Thin Man between Nick and Nora Charles, but this is fiction.