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The Lady in the Lake
The Lady in the Lake | Raymond Chandler
20 posts | 29 read | 9 to read
The Lady in the Lake is a classic detective novel by the master of hard-boiled crime Derace Kingsley's wife ran away to Mexico to get a quickie divorce and marry a Casanova-wannabe named Chris Lavery. Or so the note she left her husband insisted. Trouble is, when Philip Marlowe asks Lavery about it he denies everything and sends the private investigator packing with a flea lodged firmly in his ear. But when Marlowe next encounters Lavery, he's denying nothing - on account of the two bullet holes in his heart. Now Marlowe's on the trail of a killer, who leads him out of smoggy LA all the way to a murky mountain lake . . . 'Anything Chandler writes about grips the mind from the first sentence' Daily Telegraph 'One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards others still try to attain' Sunday Times 'Chandler is an original stylist, creator of a character as immortal as Sherlock Holmes' Anthony Burgess Best-known as the creator of the original private eye, Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler was born in Chicago in 1888 and died in 1959. Many of his books have been adapted for the screen, and he is widely regarded as one of the very greatest writers of detective fiction. His books include The Big Sleep, The Little Sister, Farewell, My Lovely, The Long Good-bye, The Lady in the Lake, Playback, Killer in the Rain, The High Window and Trouble is My Business.
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Leftcoastzen
The Lady in the Lake | Raymond Chandler
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#StorySettings #Lake I loved Chandler when I first read him, that was long ago. When Vintage books did these retro covers years ago, I couldn‘t resist them.

Bookwomble Sweet! 😍📔 6mo
DGRachel That‘s a great cover! 6mo
Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks Awesome 👏🏻 6mo
dabbe I've got all of his, too! Love these covers! 🤩🤩🤩 6mo
53 likes4 comments
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dabbe
The Lady in the Lake | Raymond Chandler
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#NewYearNewBooks
#MissingPerson
@Eggs
@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

Not a “new“ book, but definitely one with a missing person! 🤩

Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks Perfect 😱 11mo
dabbe @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks It's a great book. I love Raymond Chandler! 🖤💙🖤 11mo
Eggs I‘ve never read Chandler…stacked 11mo
dabbe @Eggs Yay! His detective in a lot of them is Philip Marlowe, played by Humphrey Bogart in THE BIG SLEEP, one of my all-time fave movies and book! 🤩🤗😍 11mo
Eggs @dabbe 🥰👏🏻😍 11mo
56 likes1 stack add5 comments
review
lauraisntwilder
The Lady in the Lake | Raymond Chandler
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Pickpick

I listened to the audio of this one with my husband and we both thought it was great. We kept pausing it to share theories over who we thought was the murderer and how things connected. It was a tightly crafted mystery, just excellent.

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Michael_Gee
The Lady in the Lake | Raymond Chandler
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Pickpick

A mix of tawdry & art and I love it. No matter how grim or gruesome, there‘s always some description that delights, making this a fun read. The California atmosphere is palpable. The intricate plot isn‘t too fast to miss Marlowe‘s moments of introspection, showing us that beneath his blasé crust is a man holding onto hope that decency will rise above the artificiality and muck of a country morally decayed and consumed with the pursuit of pleasure.

readordierachel Amazing cover 3y
28 likes1 comment
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Michael_Gee
The Lady in the Lake | Raymond Chandler

We know she will never be available for the very fact that she‘s had sex. She will turn out to be evil, or double dealing, or truly pure but sacrificed at the altar of Good in a bleak world of Evil. The only good option is the one you let go in the first third of the novel, the beautician/reporter (which tells you all you need to know). Marlowe knows where to find her if he ever wants to be penned in by a collared deer.

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Michael_Gee
The Lady in the Lake | Raymond Chandler
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She knows the difference between good perfume and cheap perfume but more importantly she doesn‘t LIKE perfume. It is the stench of a man‘s hands; a tomcat‘s spray to mark his territory. She airily rises above it. She has had sex—but you know she only did it outta misguided lurve!! But she‘ll never be attainable to Marlowe.

Cathythoughts 👌I must reread some of these ❤️ 3y
23 likes1 comment
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Michael_Gee
The Lady in the Lake | Raymond Chandler
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So then there is the unattainable Wild One, the femme fatale, the goddess of noir. She is to be worshiped and feared. These women come with A Past, meaning they have secret passions & powerful knowledge but also & importantly means they are Sexually Experienced, which titillates Marlowe. His interview is almost flirtatious, he calls “polite” society‘s bluff while loving that she‘s a part of it (she knows a cheap synthetic when she smells it!).

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Michael_Gee
The Lady in the Lake | Raymond Chandler
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The tame doe is rather like the wives described by their husbands: in reach and often in the way. Wives are boring, even disposable: Muriel faithful & long-suffering; Crystal, expensive to keep, much like a bratty teenager; Mrs. Almore a money-grubbing sleaze: all are sexually available, either to their husbands, gigolos, or anyone! but no husband is faithful to these domesticated females. All eyes turn from what has been had and is easily held.

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Michael_Gee
The Lady in the Lake | Raymond Chandler
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The deer metaphor an apt way to describe the simplistic & moralistic way women are depicted. Women are frequently referred to as “females,” which stresses an animalistic nature. “Little Fawns,” like the fluffy blonde telephone operator, can be amusing but are only escapism, rather like the resort. Marlowe can amuse himself flirting with the little fawn, but when it comes down to it her Bambi ways are not sustainably interesting.

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Michael_Gee
The Lady in the Lake | Raymond Chandler
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So I‘m in the bathtub (a little stoned), reading, & thinking abt the 3 noticeable deer sightings: Little Fawn Lake is the weekend getaway location where (in what is either a colorful anecdote of 1940s America OR wonderfully surreal) Marlowe encounters a tame doe walking down the road in a leather collar. Later it blocks his exit and he simply goes over the railing. At night, he is startled by a wild deer, untouchable & powerful.

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Michael_Gee
The Lady in the Lake | Raymond Chandler
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Chandler‘s Marlowe turns his world into laconic, disillusioned poetry. The war is mentioned on the 1st page and weaves thru the narrative obliquely. Atrocities cast a glare on the artificially of the ppl Marlowe observes, “the males in leisure jackets & liquor breaths & the females in high-pitched laughs, oxblood fingernails & dirty knuckles.” Marlowe is tough but observant, sad, sensitive. Life is a “long grim fight.”

LeahBergen What a great cover! 3y
Michael_Gee Yeah! I got it at a charity shop just for that cover. I‘ve read it before and figured it would be worth a reread for the cover alone! 3y
23 likes1 stack add2 comments
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Michael_Gee
The Lady in the Lake | Raymond Chandler
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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.

sprainedbrain What a great description! 3y
22 likes1 comment
review
Skeeterisme
Lady in the Lake | Raymond Chandler
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Pickpick

Great short story!

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bunneeboy
The Lady in the Lake | Raymond Chandler
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Pickpick

Convolutions abound!

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Blueberry
The Lady in the Lake | Raymond Chandler
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NataliePatalie Did you like 5th Wave? 6y
Blueberry @NataliePatalie yes, I did. I want to watch the movie now. 6y
54 likes3 comments
review
Blueberry
The Lady in the Lake | Raymond Chandler
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Pickpick

One of Chandler's best. So many twists and turns and who is a good guy or bad guy.

jmofo Chandler ‘s one of my heroes! 6y
62 likes1 comment
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HeinrichLyle
The Lady in the Lake | Raymond Chandler
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Pickpick

Another great tale told by a master, Raymond Chandler. After Hammett, probably the best of the hard boiled private eye scribe.

7 likes1 stack add
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Varske
The Lady in the Lake | Raymond Chandler
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A good explanation of the difference between intra and inter variation. Or why racial profiling is not good. #cats #feminism.

review
AlizaApp
The Lady in the Lake | Raymond Chandler
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Pickpick

Classic noir in which Marlowe looks into two disappearances that may be linked. I hope it‘s not a spoiler to say that the rejoinders are arch, the liquor plentiful, and the police in possession of questionable ethics.

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AlizaApp
The Lady in the Lake | Raymond Chandler
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Perfect dialogue ☠️