The Lady in the Lake

The Lady in the Lake, by Raymond Chandler, is a detective novel originally published in 1943. Chandler was born in Chicago but later moved to California, and he drew on his experiences living there when writing his Philip Marlowe novels. Marlowe, a down-on-his-luck Los Angeles detective, first appears in Chandler’s novel The Big Sleep, which was adapted into a film noir in 1946 with Marlowe played by Humphrey Bogart. In the 1946 adaptation of The Lady in the Lake, Marlowe is played by Robert Montgomery, who also directed the film. The novel is a work of hard-boiled detective fiction that explores the themes of Identity and Deception, Institutional Corruption, and The Power of the Outsider.

This guide cites the 1976 Vintage Books paperback.

Content Warning: The source material includes several homicides, including one that is staged to look like suicide, assault by police and other instances of violence, and alcohol addiction and sexism.

Plot Summary

Philip Marlowe meets with Derace Kingsley, a wealthy businessman who is looking for his wife, Crystal. Their marriage has been on the rocks, and Kingsley started inquiring into her whereabouts after she sent a telegram saying she was marrying Chris Lavery in Mexico.