The Thin Woman by Dorothy Cannell includes elements associated with fairy tales within a comic mystery context. Common fairy tale aspects help inform the story through setting, characterization, and plot. The Thin Woman is riddled with secret treasure, a house resembling a castle, hidden identities, a feisty heroine, a wizard, and even fairy tale love.

Nicknamed by Ellie, Merlin's Court is described as an estate with "whimsical qualities" in whimsical terms (2). Entering the grounds through a "pair of drunken iron gates" and across a "narrow moat bridge," characters are met by a gargoyle posing as a knocker (33-34). Upon walking into the front hall, gas lamps cast ghostly light on a "pair of moth-eaten fox heads grinning hungrily" while the rest of the house is lit with candles, fires in fireplaces, and more gaslights (35). Merlin's Court also has a cottage and a stable on the grounds. Such archaic features of the estate give a romantic feeling of an earlier time period full of moat surrounded castles, a common setting for fairy tales.

Bulky chairs and couches furnish the crowded drawing room, which resembles a funeral parlour and contains a morbid portrait of a pale "young maiden on her deathbed" (36). However, shiny "cream-worked silk paper" underneath the "mould-colored wallpaper" covers the walls of the drawing room and beautiful complimentary rose and cream upholstered chairs and sofas hide in the attic (142; 44). Merlin's Court resembles both a medieval castle and a Victorian home, both common settings for older and more contemporary fairy tales.

Ellie Simons and Bentley Haskell are the two main characters of The Thin Woman as the plot revolves around their success at fulfilling the conditions of a will. Ben is only introduced to the story, however, because Ellie is invited to a family reunion and does not wish to attend as the overweight, unescorted spinster most of her family dismisses her to be. Ellie finds Ben through an escort service and ends up telling her relatives that the two of them are engaged. Thus, at the time of Uncle Merlin's death and the reading of his will, Ben is asked to attend because Merlin believed him to be almost a member of the family and included him in the will.

While Ellie truly believes a handsome man like Ben could never be attracted to or fall in love with her, she also keeps romantic images from romance novels in the back of her mind. Another common feature found in fairy tales is true love. But, every once in a while, such as when she is drifting off to sleep, she imagines herself as a helpless maiden in the arms of a heroic rescuer like Ben. As a conscious critic of fairy tales, however, Ellie reminds herself that fairy tales are just unrealistic and impractical ideals. Yet, by the end of the story, Ben admits to having fallen in love with Ellie and actually proposes marriage, to which she unsurprisingly consents.

Although she occasional catches herself dreaming, Ellie is a feisty and witty heroine. Her relatives may nastily taunt her about her weight and marital-status and cruelly comment on her other imperfections, but Ellie always has a clever comeback. She tries not to let her malicious family members get to her too much and does not allow obstacles to hinder her ambitions as she clearly demonstrates in her attempt to lose the weight as stipulated in the will. Feisty heroines are sometimes, although not always, another characteristic of fairy tales.

Uncle Merlin, who shares a name with the wizard of King Arthur's Court, bears a resemblance to the wizard called Merlin in a sense that he is a devious manipulator of reality. First, he stages his own death by trading characters with the caretaker, Jonas Phipps, in order to witness his own funeral and reading of his will. Uncle Merlin is able to pull off his scheme by indicating a request for a funeral in the fashion of his mother, Abigail. Unbeknownst by the other character until the end of the story, the burial of his mother in the cemetery next to Merlin's Court was an elaborate plan concocted by his father, who shares a name with King Arthur, to maintain the honour of the family name when Abigail left Arthur for a younger, poorer artist.

Second, by staging his own death, Uncle Merlin is then able to guide and manipulate Ellie and Ben in completing the conditions of the will by pretending to be Jonas. He provides hints to finding the secret and treasure and also inadvertently clues Ellie in on the truth about his mother, for instance when her tells Aunt Sybil off for making derogatory remarks about Abigail. Uncle Merlin wishes to control his relatives and the outcome to the challenge like wizards try to manipulate the material world with spells and magic, further common features in fairy tales.

Along with the real Jonas Phipps, Uncle Merlin is the first character with a hidden identity. Wicked witches pose as stepmother queens as in Snow White and big bad wolves pretend to be grandmothers like in Little Red Riding Hood making hidden identities another fairy tale element. Dorcas Critchley is the second character hiding her true self. She tells Ellie and Ben that she is an unemployed games mistress from a nearby female boarding school answering the housekeeper advertisement Ellie placed in the local newspaper. However, Dorcas fails to mention she is also the granddaughter of Abigail and the artist, concealing her family connection until the truth about Abigail is discovered.

Abigail Grantham is the third important character whose actual identity is not revealed until the end of the story. Arthur staged her funeral and burial to keep the scandal involving the artist confidential. Although, to Arthur, Abigail was dead and her memory buried in the family mausoleum, she left her husband to live the rest of her life happily with the artist. However, the only Grantham family members aware of the truth concerning Abigail were Arthur, Uncle Merlin, and Aunt Sybil until Ellie uncovers the facts and Dorcas comes forward to corroborate.

The rest of the Grantham relatives each have secrets about themselves of their own such as Uncle Maurice acting like a cradle-robbing adulterer and Aunt Astrid being artificially sweet, both of which Uncle Merlin discloses in his will. But, Aunt Sybil is the final major character with a secret identity. On the surface, she is a slightly loony but seemingly gentle old lady utterly devoted to her late cousin, Merlin.

However, Aunt Sybil reveals herself as an extremely disturbed, rather vicious woman with an overoptimistic vision of Arthur and an unsettling unrequited love for Merlin. She attempts to bury Uncle Merlin alive in cement and admits to her efforts at manipulating Ellie and Ben into not discovering the secret including throwing Tobias, the cat, in the moat. She, too, helps expose Jonas as Uncle Merlin and Dorcas as the granddaughter of Abigail.

Searching for hidden treasure while overcoming obstacles is another common element in fairy tales as well. The fundamental premise of The Thin Woman is for Ellie and Ben to discover the treasure connected with Merlin's Court as stipulated in the will. Even with the numerous discouraging attempts aimed at the couple abandoning the quest like the box of chocolates and accompanying obscene phone call for Ellie and the bleaching of his manuscript for Ben, the two eventually uncover the secret associated with Abigail and the jewelled egg left in her unused grave.

The Thin Woman written by Dorothy Cannell clearly contains fairy tale aspects such as hidden treasure, secret identity, and a feisty heroine within a comic mystery. The story is told using characterization, setting, and plot riddled with fairy tale elements. However, a conscious critic of the unreality of fairy tales through Ellie reminding herself that her dreams are just dreams is also evident within the story.

Cannell, Dorothy. The Thin Woman. New York: Bantam Books, 1984.