Thin Man (nuclear bomb) and the name came from the Dashiell Hammett detective novel "The Thin Man" and series of movies by the same name. The "Fat Man" bomb would be round and fat and was named after Sydney Greenstreet's character in "The Maltese Falcon". "Little Boy" would come last and be named only to contrast to the "Thin Man" bomb. Oppenheimer assembled a team at the Los Alamos Laboratory to work on plutonium gun design that included senior engineer Edwin McMillan and senior physicists Charles Critchfield and Joseph Hirschfelder. Critchfield had been working with sabots, which Oppenheimer believed would be required by the
The Thin Man Hammett's papers in 2011, together with instructions by Hammett for incorporation of additional elements written by screenwriters Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich, were edited by Hammett's biographer Richard Layman in collaboration with Hammett's granddaughter Julie M. Rivett and published as novellas in "Return of the Thin Man" in 2012. The story is set in New York City in December 1932, in the last days of Prohibition. The main characters are a former private detective, Nick Charles and Nora his clever young wife. Nick, son of a Greek immigrant, has given up his career since marrying Nora, a wealthy socialite and