***Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night –Raymond Chandler’s The Lady In The Lake

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

The Lady In The Lake, Raymond Chandler, Vintage Books, New York, 1976

Yah, they don’t make P.I.’s, private dicks, snoopers, gumshoes, peepers, shamuses, or whatever they call private detectives in your neighborhood, like Philip Marlowe anymore. Oh sure there are tough-minded guys (and gals) who aren’t afraid to take a punch or seven, maybe take a little slug or two for the cause out there in novelistic or cinematic private detective land. Or who aren’t afraid to till at windmills to get at the bad guys or at least keep them in check. But today’s P.I.s carry an arsenal of technological gizmos from computers, DNA kits, and infrared devices to ultra-chic high-powered weapons that make their hunt kind of child’s play. Marlowe just toughed it out with brains, a little brawn, and an off-hand slug or two.

We know either the old or new way the bad guys are going down, or are held in check, but it is kind of nice to see an old time pro work out of the seat of his pants trying to get a little justice, or maybe just a little private quiet in this wicked old world. We know for example that our boy took down a rough and tough gambler and all-around hood and his boys when he took down Eddie Mars in The Big Sleep, taking more than a few punches (and kisses) along the way to bring that cretin to heel. We know that he also took those same punches, and a good doping too, maybe some morphine fix, in order to bring some wayward femme named Velma to heel. So we know that Brother Marlowe will be doing some heavy lifting in this wartime detective trying to find some Mayfair swell’s wayward wife out in those Hollywood hills.

See our Mayfair swell, a guy named Kingsley, a big guy in the perfume business, brings in Marlowe to find his wayward wife last seen a month before up in their getaway cabin. Apparently said wife had, as they say, her own life, got her own kicks her own way, including with other guys, so this Kingsley didn’t panic until it dawned on him that if wifey meal ticket disappeared eventually he was going to have earn his own coffee and cakes for real. And maybe, just maybe too those West Coast coppers, might finger him for her disappearance since he was playing footsy with his fetching (Marlowe’s description, okay) secretary just like a lot of guys do, a lot of guys in the crime noir world anyway.

So our boy, in serious need of some dough to purchase his own coffee and cakes, takes the case and as usual runs all over Southern California trying to figure out where the hell Mrs. Kingsley is. Naturally there are a ton of false leads, including the identity of that lady found in that lake mentioned in the title of the book, a little other misdirection, a smattering of social commentary, a few wise and unwise cops, some police shenanigans, the average number of Marlowe knocks on the head, a few frame-ups, a couple of off-hand killings and then Marlowe justice. And the beauty, the real beauty of the thing is that our boy mainly did leg work, car work, and brain work, to close this one out. Can you believe that? Enough said.

Oh well, not exactly enough. I forgot to mention the author, famed crime noir writer Raymond Chandler, who back in the day just so happened to, along with Dashiell Hammett, to grab detective fiction from the clutches of drawing room amateur sleuths fit for gentile afternoons and introduce world- weary and wise tough guys tilting at those big old windmills. Not bad Brother Chandler, not bad.