The Lady in the Lake (Book) (1943)

I am a huge fan of Raymond Chandler’s writing and of his main character and star detective Philip Marlowe. I was very much looking forward to reading The Lady in the Lake, and I wasn’t disappointed. Once again, Chandler has written an intriguing mystery filled with Marlowe’s astute and wry observations.

I have written about two other novels by Raymond Chandler. Click on the book title to read each of them.

◊ The High Window (1942)

◊ The Little Sister (1949)

Philip Marlowe is hired by Derace Kingsley, of the Gillerlain Company, to find his missing wife Crystal. Derace hasn’t heard from his wife in about a month, and he is worried about her well-being. His last communication from her was a telegram announcing her decision to divorce him and marry Chris Lavery in Mexico. But Derace Kingsley has since run into Lavery, who insists that he has no idea where Crystal is or what she is doing.

Derace Kingsley explains his concerns to Philip Marlowe, and Marlowe heads to Little Fawn Lake, where the Kingsleys own a cabin and where Crystal Kingsley was last seen in person. His mission is to talk to Bill Chess, the property manager, to find out what he can and to gain entry to the Kingsley cabin to look for clues. Before Marlowe returns to Los Angeles, however, he and Chess find a body submerged under a sunken pier at the lake. Chess identifies the body as that of his wife Muriel, and Marlowe’s investigation of a wife gone missing is now complicated by a suspicious death. And just to make the story more interesting, he uncovers a little bit of police corruption along the way, too.

One of the many things I enjoy about Chandler’s writing is his dry humor. The Lady in the Lake begins with Marlowe arriving at Kingsley’s office at the Gillerlain Company and meeting his secretary, Adrienne Fromsett. Marlowe hasn’t been given any assignment yet; he’s there to find out why Derace Kingsley needs his services. Chandler sets the tone and the pace and introduces several of the main characters in the opening chapter. Like all of Chandler’s novels about Marlowe, the story is told in the first person from Marlowe’s perspective, and his observations, with Chandler’s wonderful use of language, make a wait for a meeting with a company executive amusing, for example:

◊ The description of Adrienne Fromsett:

She wore a steel gray business suit and under the jacket a dark blue shirt and a man’s tie of lighter shade. The edges of the folded handkerchief in the breast pocket looked sharp enough to slice bread. (page 4)

 

She initialed three letters rapidly, to keep from throwing her pen at me. She spoke again without looking up. (page 5)

◊ The description of Derace Kingsley:

He was about six feet two and not much of it soft. His eyes were stone gray with flecks of cold light in them. He filled a large size in smooth gray flannel with a narrow chalk strip, and filled it elegantly. His manner said he was very tough to get along with. (pages 6–7)

When Marlowe is finally admitted into Derace Kingsley’s office, Kingsley gives him a photograph of Crystal Kingsley and her last known boyfriend, Chris Lavery. Marlowe observes from the photo the following about Lavery:

. . . The man was a hefty dark handsome lad with fine shoulders and legs, sleek dark hair, and white teeth. Six feet of a standard type of homewrecker. Arms to hold you close and all his brains in his face. (pages 11–12)

Marlowe solves a total of four murders in The Lady in the Lake, and he does it with great linguistic flair. A detective needs an eye for detail because any one of them could be the clue that unlocks the mystery, but the way Marlowe describes his circumstances and other people make the ride a fun one for readers, too.

I saw the film Lady in the Lake (1947) based on Chandler’s novel several years ago. (And yes, the title of the film drops the first article.) I remember not enjoying the film as much as I had hoped. It was shot from Marlowe’s point of view, with the camera standing in for Marlowe and viewers seeing everything from Marlowe’s perspective, a first-person point of view (POV) that didn’t work very well as a filming technique, as I recall. It was very distracting, more so than it might sound on paper (or on-screen). Seeing the film after reading the novel seemed to improve the film for me! I enjoyed comparing the film and the novel.

Click here for my article about Lady in the Lake, the film adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s novel.

Fiction from other periods often uses a different style of language and vocabulary. Words and phrases go in and out of style, which is even more true of a writer who uses a lot of slang and colloquialisms, as Chandler does. I find myself looking up terms when I watch films noir and when I read the novels on which they are based. So I have added the following list of terms that I came across in The Lady in the Lake and the definitions that I found from sources online. The list is not exhaustive, and you may already know some of the terms, but I can’t resist sharing the list because I love language in general, not just Chandler’s. If you click on each term, you can go to the site where I found the definition. Many of the sites have more information than I provide here.

◊ ashes of roses: a variable color averaging a light grayish red that is yellower and very slightly darker than livid violet—called also rose gray.

◊ Capehart: Capehart radio-phonograph console; the Capehart Corporation and its automatic phonograph sold luxury phonographs.

◊ chypre: (pronounced “sheep-ra”) perfume created in the early twentieth century and is based on citrus notes, mosses, patchouli, and labdanum. Coty created the first chypre in 1917, and it was called “Chypre.”

◊ HBD: had been drinking (police lingo according to Philip Marlowe/Raymond Chandler).

◊ PBX: private branch exchange. A PBX system is a private internal telephone system that enables internal and external communication.

◊ rat roll: classic hairstyle from the 1940s. The tightly curled roll was wrapped around an accessory called a rat: a tubular, stuffed fabric accessory.

◊ snood: a type of traditional female headgear designed to hold the hair in a cloth or yarn bag. It is similar to a hairnet, but a snood typically has a looser fit, a much coarser mesh, and noticeably thicker yarn.

Chandler’s novels involve a bit of education about language and history, which is fun for me because I very much enjoy that sort of thing. Oh, and the story: Even though I had seen the film and thought I knew whodunit, I was still pleasantly surprised by plot developments as I read along. It’s such a treat when a good story is told so artfully.

The Lady in the Lake, by Raymond Chandler  •  New York: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 1992  •  Originally published in 1943

List of main characters:

Philip Marlowe, private investigator  •  Derace Kingsley, Gillerlain Company  •  Adrienne Fromsett, secretary at the Gillerlain Company  •  Bill Chess, property manager at Little Fawn Lake  •  Muriel Chess, Bill’s wife  •  Crystal Grace Kingsley, wife of Derace  •  Chris Lavery, last known boyfriend of Mrs. Kingsley  •  Albert S. Almore, Crystal’s former doctor and neighbor of Chris Lavery  •  Degarmo, detective lieutenant with the Bay City Police  •  Webber, captain with the Bay City Police  •  Jim Patton, sheriff in Puma Point  •  Andy, police officer in Puma Point  •  Doc Hollis, coroner in Puma Point

The image of the front cover is from the Vintage Crime/Black Lizard edition. The page references in this blog article refer to the Vintage Crime/Black Lizard edition listed above.