Chamblee54

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AKDw2hwi5I%5D

PG recently used a few hours of his life to read The Lady in the Lake . It is a story by Raymond Chandler. As you might expect, the central figure is Philip Marlowe. It is set in Southern California at the start of World War II.
Mr. Marlowe is hired by a wealthy man to find his no good wife. When Mr. Marlowe starts nosing around, bodies start to show up. Mr. Marlowe almost becomes one of the deceased. After a few plot twists, a meeting is held in a mountain cabin, and a finger is pointed at a suspect. This person storms out of the meeting, and dies.
This may not be the best plot ever. There are a few too many coincidences. One character is Mildred Haviland. First, she is the wife of a drunken caretaker who drowns. Then we learn she was the nurse/gf of a doctor who specializes in narcotics. This doctor lives across the street from a boyfriend of the rich man’s wife. A crooked policeman gets involved in the story. It turns out he was married to Mildred Haviland. After a while, you wonder just how small Los Angeles was in 1942.
You don’t read Mr. Chandler for the logical plots. You read him for the way he massages the language. Take this description of Chris Lavery, the ill fated lover of the runaway bride: “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. He was holding a pair of dark glasses in his hand and smiling at the camera with a practised and easy smile.”
The story was made into a movie in 1947. Robert Montgomery played Mr. Marlowe. The text is available online. Pictures today are from the The Library of Congress.