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The Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler
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The Lady in the Lake (original 1943; edition 1988)

by Raymond Chandler

Series: Philip Marlowe (4)

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3,309673,936 (4.03)104
Fiction. Mystery. HTML:Crime fiction master Raymond Chandler's fourth novel featuring Philip Marlowe, the "quintessential urban private eye" (Los Angeles Times). 
In The Lady in the Lake, hardboiled crime fiction master Raymond Chandler brings us the story of a couple of missing wivesâ??one a rich man's and one a poor man'sâ??who have become the objects of Philip Marlowe's investigation. One of them may have gotten a Mexican divorce and married a gigolo and the other may be dead. Marlowe's not sure he cares about either one, but he's not paid to… (more)
Member:claraoscura
Title:The Lady in the Lake
Authors:Raymond Chandler
Info:Vintage (1988), Edition: FIRST VINTAGE EDITION, Paperback, 272 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:***1/2
Tags:english, crime, 2013

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The Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler (1943)

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» See also 104 mentions

English (58)  Spanish (4)  Swedish (1)  Italian (1)  Catalan (1)  French (1)  German (1)  All languages (67)
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*Partial spoilers ahead*

The high-maintenance wife of a perfume company executive is missing, and the exec hires Philip Marlowe to track her down. When Marlowe goes to the mountain vacation cabin where the woman was last seen, the caretaker's wife is found dead--drowned in the lake--and the plot thickens. Before he knows it, Marlowe is up to his neck in shady gigolos, shadier housecall doctors and typically nasty Bay City cops, as it becomes increasingly obvious that someone doesn't want him to put the pieces together.

The Lady in the Lake represents Raymond Chandler in his prime. It's far superior to The Big Sleep--which caught Chandler at a moment when he was still more of a short story writer than a novelist--and occasionally approaches the brilliance of his late-career masterpiece The Long Goodbye. (Especially worthy of note is the vivid portrait that Chandler paints of rural lawman Jim Patton: it's one of his finest characterizations.) Here he's a total master of his craft, making Marlowe the lonely lens through which the reader views a world that is, at best, cruelly indifferent. In that regard, The Lady in the Lake may be the Chandler book to which Ross Macdonald owed the single greatest debt. At any rate, this is one of the quintessential hard-boiled detective novels, and it's an ideal point of entry if you're new to Chandler or to the subject matter in general. ( )
  Jonathan_M | Oct 24, 2023 |
Good mystery. I liked the dialogue and the creative spelling of many words (kerb, clews). ( )
  nogomu | Oct 19, 2023 |
Raymond Chandler, in my opinion, exceeds all other detective story writers by virtue of his thrillingly dry and low-key language, memorable characterizations, and intricate but believable plotting. But there’s something else, an undefinable quality of attitude and dialog that no one but Dashiell Hammett has ever come close to duplicating. This wonderful novel, a mashup of two splendid short stories, feels like a single original creation, so skillfully does Chandler meld the two. It involves a dead woman in a lake, another one in a garage, and a dead guy in a bathtub, and the knotty problem of who they were and how they got there. Crime fiction’s finest modern character, private eye Philip Marlowe takes on the case in one Chandler’s most engaging works. ( )
  jumblejim | Aug 26, 2023 |
Read it again a few weeks back.

For an author, first person Point of View is a difficult voice to pull off well. Chandler is a master. Highly recommended and not just for the POV lesson, but another great plot, interesting, well-formed characters and of course Philip Marlowe.

It is a great shame Chandler only wrote seven novels (eight if you include Poodle Springs which was finished by Robert B. Parker). ( )
  Domenick.Venezia | Aug 20, 2023 |
A missing woman, another found in a lake. Marlowe unravels a complicated mystery. ( )
  addunn3 | Oct 7, 2022 |
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» Add other authors (27 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Chandler, Raymondprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Galloni, AdelchiCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Karasek, HellmuthTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Nyytäjä, KaleviTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Tormey, JamesCover designersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Veraldi, AttilioTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed

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The Treloar Building was, and is, on Olive Street, near Sixth, on the west side. The sidewalk in front of it had been built of black and white rubber blocks. They were taking them up now to give to the government, and a hatless pale man with a face like a building superintendent was watching the work and looking as if it was breaking his heart.
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This is the 1943 novel that was based on a 1939 short story with the same title. Please do not combine the novel and the short story.
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Fiction. Mystery. HTML:Crime fiction master Raymond Chandler's fourth novel featuring Philip Marlowe, the "quintessential urban private eye" (Los Angeles Times). 
In The Lady in the Lake, hardboiled crime fiction master Raymond Chandler brings us the story of a couple of missing wivesâ??one a rich man's and one a poor man'sâ??who have become the objects of Philip Marlowe's investigation. One of them may have gotten a Mexican divorce and married a gigolo and the other may be dead. Marlowe's not sure he cares about either one, but he's not paid to

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Penguin Australia

3 editions of this book were published by Penguin Australia.

Editions: 0140108947, 0141399333, 0241956323

 

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