Princess Fuzzypants here:
I love the Thin Man movies. I love the Nick and Nora book series. This book clearly tries to emulate the froth and fun of the original. The Nic and Nigel dialogue succeeded. I could hear William Powell deliver NIgel's lines and Nic almost got Myrna Loy down too. The story was interesting. Video tapes are discovered in their new home from the film set of a classic movie. It had to be reshot because the leading lady committed suicide- or did she?
When some of the tapes are stolen in a violent break in than seriously injures their assistant, the two are determined to figure out what was so corrosive that it would lead someone to go to such extremes. In this version, it is Nic who has the legal background as a former NYC detective. Naturally, the local misogynistic cop doesn't appreciate her help. If there is a weak point in the story, I would say it was the conflict between them. It may distracted from the story.
The film characters were well defined and easy to "cast" in my mind. The use of real stars in the book came across like name dropping and I am not sure how well some of them might appreciate their inclusion. My two objections, the conflict between Nic and the cop and the mixture of fictional with "factual" reduced my enjoyment of what should have been a truly good book.
Still and all, I give it four purrs and two paws up.