Mystery Review: The Lady in the Lake is the fourth Philip Marlowe outing and although there are no characters that leap off the page to lodge in the reader's memory, they're uniformly vivid and believable. The exception being the memorable, continuing saga of Marlowe himself, as he's beginning to feel the weariness of age. "I brushed my hair and looked at the gray in it. There was getting to be plenty of gray in it. The face under the hair had a sick look. I didn't like the face at all." There's less of the wisecracking and snappy patter, but the cynicism remains. And the crooked Bay City (read Santa Monica) cops are still doing their thing. "Well, I hate to think the police are not honest ... but these things are done, and everybody knows it." The Lady in the Lake is as perfectly paced, plotted, and written as any of the Marlowe books. If you like one of the others you'll enjoy this clever addition to the series. This is one of the key books on which Raymond Chandler's reputation rests. The Lady in the Lake was also filmed in 1946 with Robert Montgomery in the lead role (and directing). While he's not my idea of Marlowe, as the movie uses a "subjective camera" or first person point of view, breaking the fourth wall, you don't see him much anyway. One minor note: my copy was printed in England with British spellings occasionally substituted: petrol, tyres, kerb. Although interesting and entertaining, this read reinforced for me the utter nonsense of such "translations," as when the Harry Potter books were Americanized. I'd much rather have the author's words. This is an excellent novel with just the right hint of tough guy noir. I'm envious that this was the quality of literature stuffed into bus station book racks for 25¢ in the 1940s. [4★]
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