The Lady in the Lake is a 1943 detective novel written by Raymond Chandler and featuring Philip Marlowe.
Marlowe is hired by Derace Kingsley, a wealthy businessman, to find Kingsley's wife. Crystal Kingsley had apparently run off with one of her lovers, Chris Lavery, but Lavery has reappeared on the scene and denies knowing anything about her whereabouts.
Marlowe's investigation also uncovers the truth about two other lost wives: Florence Almore, a doctor's wife whose suspicious death was ruled a suicide, and Muriel Chess, the wife of the caretaker of the lakeside holiday home where Mrs Kingsley was last seen.
The 1947 film version of Lady in the Lake starred Robert Montgomery as Marlowe and is famous for using a P.O.V. Cam for almost the entire film.
This novel contains examples of:
- Balcony Escape: Marlowe is knocked out in an apartment and recovers consciousness to find himself sharing the room with a dead body and police knocking on the door. He buys time by climbing out the window and in through the window of the next room.I looked sideways and saw that the bathroom window of the next apartment was not more than three feet away. A well-nourished mountain goat could make it without any trouble at all. The question was whether a battered private detective could make it, and if so, what the harvest would be.
- The Casanova: Chris Lavery, a small-time lothario who lives off the women he dates. Miss Fromsett describes him as 'quite easy to hate [...] And poisonously easy to love.' Mildred kills him because he saw her alive after she faked her death.
- Cat Scare: Marlowe breaks into Bill Chess's cottage to search for clues. While he's searching, he hears footsteps outside. He moves quietly over to the door and yanks it open — and it's just one of the local deer.
- Character Name Alias: At one point, needing a fake name at a moment's notice, Marlowe claims to be named Philo Vance.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Mrs Fallbrook, Chris Lavery's landlady, is a rather scatterbrained woman who Marlowe has to bluster his way past — just before he finds Lavery dead in his bathroom. She's not actually the landlady, but rather Mildred Haviland in disguise, Returning to the Scene.
- Continuity Nod: While talking to a police detective in Bay City, Marlowe asks after Red Norgaard, a Bay City detective he befriended in Farewell, My Lovely, and is informed that he's away in the army now.
- Crime After Crime: Mildred Haviland/Muriel Chess kills a bunch of people in order to try to steal the identity of Crystal Kingsley. This includes Crystal herself, Lavery, and almost Marlowe himself. She was already a murderer for killing Mrs. Almore before any of this started.
- Crusty Caretaker: Bill Chess is a rough, rugged man living on an army pension who looks after the cabins at Little Fawn Lake for Kingsley and his fellow investors.
- Dangerous Clifftop Road: The murderer rushes the military barricade on top of the dam at Little Fawn Lake and careens off the side.
- Dead Person Impersonation: The murdered woman in Little Fawn Lake, supposed to be Muriel Chess, was actually Crystal Kingsley, killed by Mildred Haviland, who then assumed her identity.
- Dirty Cop: The cops in Bay City are notorious for being on the payroll of the local gangsters. Mrs Almore's death is widely believed by those who know about it to have been a murder that was covered up by a gangster who Dr. Almore was doing off-the-books work for. It was a murder, and Detective-Lieutenant Degarmo did cover it up, albeit for more personal reasons.
- During the War: Set during WW2, after the US joined it. While at first glance it's a completely insignificant detail that serves no purpose, the finale has Degarmo trying to escape through the dam of Puma Lake, which, as a strategic asset, is guarded by the military. Since he drives past the checkpoint, they open fire, killing him.
- Faking the Dead: The body in the lake that's identified as Muriel Chess isn't her. She faked her own death so she could get away without anybody looking for her, murdering Crystal Kingsley to provide a suitable body.
- Femme Fatale: Mildred Haviland is a skilled actor with a way of getting men to jump through hoops for her. She murders two women and one man and threatens to shoot Marlowe before being killed herself.
- Finally Found the Body: A month after Muriel Chess went missing, her husband happens to spot a bloated blonde corpse under a pier. It never occurred to him that her final note to him could be read as a suicide note just as easily as a "Dear John" Letter. Except instead of the body of Muriel Chess, murdered by Crystal Kingsley, it's exactly the opposite, used by Muriel, actually Mildred Haviland, to keep anyone from looking for her.
- Frame-Up:
- A modus operandi for the local police force to get rid of nosy PIs - stop them for speeding, Force Feed them a bottle of liquor and then lock them up for drunk driving and handle the speeding ticket.
- After having a meeting with who might be Crystal Kingsley, Marlowe is knocked out, only to wake up next to her dead, naked body, while himself being doused with gin. He is still able to work his way out of this.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Once the truth of Crystal Kingsley's death is revealed, and as the man who killed her murderer tries to make good his escape, Kingsley wordlessly drains a glass of whiskey, throws up his arms, walks into another room and goes to sleep.
- Informed Ability: Mildred's ability to wrap men around her little finger is discussed, but while we see the emotional turmoil left in her wake, we never see her seduce anyone.
- Just Between You and Me: Lampshaded.Marlowe: I've never liked this scene. Detective confronts murderer. Murderer produces gun, points same at detective. Murderer tells detective the whole sad story, with the idea of shooting him at the end of it. Thus wasting a lot of valuable time, even if in the end murderer did shoot detective. Only murderer never does. Something always happens to prevent it. The gods don't like this scene either. They always manage to spoil it.
- Master of Disguise: Mrs Fallbrook, the Crystal Kingsley who Marlowe meets at Granada apartments, and Muriel Chess are all actually the same person: Mildred Haviland. Marlowe is suspicious of Mrs Fallbrook until she puts the gun in his hand, and later he admits that he is impressed by the same woman's hard-boiled performance in the Granada, but it isn't until the Summation Gathering that he affirms that the real Crystal is dead, and Mildred, alias Muriel, killed her and impersonated her in San Bernardino as well, a month before Granada.
- Medium Awareness: Even by Chandler's standards, this is a novel in which the most Lampshade Hangings, Leanings on the Fourth Wall and Discussed Tropes happen, directly delivered by Marlowe either in dialogues or even his narration. It goes as far as having a lengthy discussion on Chandler's Law and how those situations usually play out.
- Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: It starts out with a search for a missing / runaway wife and ends up with 3 murders and mafia involvement in defense industries, skimming money from the war effort.
- My Card: Marlowe carries two sets of business cards: one with his business details and contact information, and one with just his name for situations when he doesn't wish to advertise his reason for calling. When he calls into Kingsley's office at the beginning of the novel, he gives the plain card to the secretary when he asks to be announced, but gives his business card to Kingsley after being shown in.
- Not With the Safety On, You Won't: When Marlowe is being held at gunpoint by the murderer, he notes that she's not confident with the gun, and tells her that she's still got the safety catch on. This distracts her just long enough for him to knock the gun away and turn the confrontation into a contest of physical strength. Lampshaded by Marlowe, who refers to it as "that old business of the safety catch not being off".
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Calling her husband for getaway money, Crystal seems much more subdued and hard-nosed than she has been described. Marlowe wonders if everyone has been underestimating her. Kingsley himself is confused to see the cabin where Crystal was supposedly living is recently cleaned and organized. All of which adds to the evidence when Marlowe reveals that 'Crystal' was actually an impostor, Muriel/Mildred impersonating the woman she killed.
- Pink Elephants: Miss Fromsett tells Marlowe that Dr. Almore has a reputation as the kind of doctor "who ran around all night with a case of loaded hypodermic needles, keeping the fast set from having pink elephants for breakfast."
- Private Detective: Marlowe, obviously. The Lady in the Lake is notable for taking him far away from the big city and sending him into the countryside, where he has to rely on himself in a "foreign" place.
- Revealing Cover Up: After Marlowe goes to talk to Lavery, a Dirty Cop shows up to warn him off taking an interest in the affairs of Lavery's neighbor Dr. Almore. As Marlowe takes great pleasure in telling the cop later, he'd had no idea who Dr. Almore was and no interest in him until the warning-off told him there was something to be interested in; if it hadn't been for that, he'd have left the Almore angle alone and nobody involved in it would have had anything to worry about.
- The Sheriff: Jim Patton is the town constable and deputy sheriff, presumably answerable to a county sheriff, but Puma Point is far enough up in the mountains that he's effectively on his own. Despite his advancing age, he's impressively quick on the draw and a good enough shot to shoot a gun out of a man's hands.
- Stop, or I Will Shoot!: Following the Summation Gathering, Degarmo attempts to escape but is killed while crossing a dam guarded by wartime sentries under orders to shoot potential saboteurs.
- Summation Gathering: Marlowe has Degarmo drive him up to Kingsley's cabin and has Constable Patton meet him there. It is not to arrest Kingsley, as Degarmo has been allowed to assume, but rather because Marlowe now knows who killed who: Degarmo killed Mildred Haviland, after Mildred killed Chris Lavery, Crystal Kingsley, and before that Dr. Almore's wife. Degarmo originally helped cover up the murder of Florence Almore because he was in love with Mildred; he finally killed her because he wasn't willing to let Mildred go on killing, but still wasn't willing to come clean about his own part in the coverup. Marlowe's idea was to lure the killer someplace isolated where they wouldn't be able to bolt.
- Suicide by Cop: Degarmo seems to be all but daring Patton to kill him as he leaves, but the constable refuses to shoot an unarmed man. Degarmo then steals the deputy's car, rushes the wartime checkpoint across the dam, and is shot halfway across, swerving over the side and landing in a crumpled wreck below.
- Tap on the Head: While confronting Kingsley's wife, who has now produced a gun, somebody steps out from behind a curtain and coshes Marlowe on the back of the head. He wakes up to find the woman dead, and himself covered in gin and made out to look as if he killed her. During The Summation he reveals that he has deduced that the man who coshed him and killed the woman was Dirty Cop Degarmo.
- Vomiting Cop: When the local constable and his deputy come to take charge of the corpse that's been sunken in the lake for a month, the constable, coroner, and Marlowe take it in relative stride, but after wrapping up the body, the deputy goes off and throws up behind a tree. Downplayed; he does so in a fairly businesslike manner and Marlowe's narration doesn't dwell on his reaction.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Patton pretends to be a rather feeble old man who is now going to get shot by a murderer because Marlowe decided to hold his Summation Gathering in Patton's town. The murderer takes a moment to laugh at him, giving Patton the brief window he needs to Quick Draw his pistol and shoot the gun out of their hands.
