Nick and Nora Charles the bantering, romantically involved detective duo has become a well-used trope in literature, stage, screen, and television ever since. The characters first appear in Dashiell Hammett's best-selling last novel "The Thin Man" (1934). Nick is an alcoholic former private detective who retired when he married Nora, a wealthy Nob Hill heiress. Hammett reportedly modeled Nora on his longtime partner Lillian Hellman, and the characters' boozy, flippant dialogue on their relationship. (The novel also mentions that Nick was once a Pinkerton detective, as was Hammett.) The novel is considered one of the seminal texts of the hard-boiled subgenre of mystery novels,
Jay Pinkerton 2008 and served as a writer for their games. In June 2017, he announced he had left Valve for unspecified reasons. However, he returned to resume working as a writer for Valve in July 2018. Jay Pinkerton Jay Pinkerton (born June 15, 1977) is a Canadian humorist known for co-writing, with Erik Wolpaw, the story of Valve Corporation's video game "Portal 2". A former editor of both Cracked.com and "Cracked" magazine, "PlayStation World" magazine referred to him as a "one-man gag machine". Prior to joining "Cracked", Pinkerton served as the managing editor of NationalLampoon.com, the website of the national comedy