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Summary: A Good Summer Reading book
Review: Raymond Chandler takes us through Marlowe to where good and evil become virtually hard to tell. Marlowe goes beyond his usual work to the summertime getaway places of his time. Filled with twists and turns as well as the gritty dialog that I didn't expect from Chandler. The Lady in the Lake is a good book that delivers the mystery and what not he is known for. This has been my favorite summer reading book yet.
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Summary: The Lady in the Lake, by Raymond Chandler
Review: Raymond Chandler's The Lady in the Lake was a great book. I liked it a lot because of the mystery it had in it. Marlowe was my favorite character because he was a rough private eye.In this book I never knew what was comming.This book was one of the best I have read in awhile because of the murder,mystery,and back stabbing. I recomend this book for anyone who loves a good mystery.
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Summary: One of the most exciting books I've ever read
Review: The Lady in the Lake is a great, fast-paced book that continues to reveal new secrets with every chapter. The conection between Arthurian Legend particularly The lady of the lake made the book more intersting. "The thing rolled over once more and an arm flapped up barley above the skin of the water and the arm ended in a bloated hand that was the hand of a frek." (Pg. 51) This is very similar to the story of The Lady of the Lake. Simple details such as that one made this a highly addictive book.
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Summary: Weaker Marlowe Entry Still Worth Reading
Review: THE LADY IN THE LAKE is one of Raymond Chandler's weaker Philip Marlowe novels, if not the weakest. (I say "weakest" as opposed to "worst," because, to paraphrase the cliche, reading Chandler is a bit like sex: Even when it's bad, it's still pretty good.) But that's just it. It's not that this is a bad read by any stretch - it's head and shoulders above the best mysteries taking up space on the bestseller lists, and most of the mysteries ever published. But, because this is Chandler, it's held to a higher standard than disposable airline reads, and by that yardstick, it falls short.The story of this (the first Marlowe novel written after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor), like all in the series, starts simply enough: Our Hero is hired by a wealthy businessman to find his missing wife. And like all Marlowe stories, the case soon becomes much more complicated, leading Marlowe on a trail of twists and turns through some of the darkest shadows of his world until, at last, all is revealed. It is a fun trail to follow for the reader, if not always for Marlowe. Still, it doesn't match the intense intricacy of FAREWELL, MY LOVELY nor the lurid seductiveness of THE BIG SLEEP - both among the classics of 20th century literature. It even misses the layering of THE HIGH WINDOW, leaving a fun read without as much depth. Worse, the twists, while they might surprise or confuse readers fed on the whodunit simplicity of Agatha Christie, are, for devoted Chandlerites, more obvious. I guessed the titular lady's secret soon after she was found in the lake, and it was not too difficult to tie in several - although, I admit, not all - later twists. Still, Chandler is Chandler. His dry, intoxicating prose is here, as is his mastery of characterization. The most vivid supporting characters here are not Degarmo, the brutal cop heavy, nor Mr. Kingsley, the wealthy perfume baron, both of whom would fit into almost any Chandler novel. Rather, the scene-stealers are Bill Chess, the roughneck widower, and Sheriff Jim Patton, the law in a place that rarely needs him. These two are far removed from the Los Angeles back alleys, grimy motel rooms, rundown slums and mansions with plenty of closet space for skeletons that are Chandler's milieu, yet they become as real as old friends. Ultimately, writing a review of a Chandler novel is almost a waste of time. His devoted fans - among whose numbers I readily count myself - will want to own this no matter how many stars I give it; and those who prefer locked room whodunits with quirky old lady detectives aren't even reading this. Still, to those interested in finding out why Chandler has engrossed readers for decades, don't start here. I'd recommend THE BIG SLEEP and FAREWELL, MY LOVELY as introductions, and THE LADY IN THE LAKE as a palate-cleanser once you're hooked.
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Summary: A good book with a nice twist.
Review: The Lady in the Lake was a good mystery. It used many ways of alluding to the climax of the story. The twist at the climax of the story, was a nice surprise which kept me from letting the book rest before I was done with it.
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Summary: Suspense!!!!
Review: The Lady in the Lake was a very mysterious and suspensfull book. The book kept me wanting to read more and more every time someone died. This book was a thriller the whole way through. The book made it seem as if you couldn't anybody. In the end I was suprised at who the murderers were.
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Summary: It is a very unpredictable novel.
Review: The novel seemed appealing to me because it was very unpredictable. I find the stories which had preidictable resolutions to a confilct are pretty much boring, as was not the case for this book. A good example is when Muriel Chess really did not die in the lake, but actually Crystal Kingsley died. "..she had already been dead for over a month...the woman you saw dead in the Granada Apartments was Mildred Haviland, and Mildred Haviland was Muriel Chess." That kind of surprise really gave me a motivation to finish the book. This was a novel which I consider to be very good piece of work by Chandler because I enjoyed it and I am not a person who loves to read. Chandler Raymond. "The Lady in the Lake." p.254. New York, NY: Random House 1992
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Summary: I felt that this book was very interesting and clever.
Review: The one thing that made me like this book was the fact that the mystery was not solved. All the peices of the puzzle were there but no one put it together.These are the type of book's that are interesting because of the ending. My favorite quote was "To hell with this polite drinking".So I felt that the title was brilliant because the lady in the lake wasn't Muriel Chess it was Dereace Kingsley's wife Crystal.
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Summary: Good but...
Review: The person 'A reader from California , September 1, 1998 who said I felt that this book was very interesting and clever', etc. is a very stupid and ignorant person. Thank you for ruining the book for me and others.
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Summary: Back when men were men and women were dames.
Review: The setting of 1940's California is great, and that is actually when Chandler wrote this book. It's a classic noir mystery and I couldn't help thinking as I was reading that it should have been played by Bogie as Philip Marlowe and Bacall as the femme fatale in this story. This would make a great movie actually. It's a twist on the classic missing female story. Marlowe has been hired by a big wig to find his wife. She's been missing for a month. As Marlowe tries to follow her tracks he gets pitted against some pretty desperate men, and he manages to get knocked on the head at least a couple of times before he figures out what happened to the woman he is hired to find. Chandler's characterizations are great. Marlowe is wonderful, but there are some really good bit players in this one too - for example Patton- the Sheriff from San Bernadino is actually quite wonderful. A good old boy that happens to be as sharp as a tack and a crack shot too. Good stuff.
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