The Lady in the Lake is a 1943 detective novel by Raymond Chandler featuring the Los Angeles private investigator Philip Marlowe. Notable for its removal of Marlowe from his usual Los Angeles environs for much of the book, the novel's complicated plot initially deals with the case of a missing woman in a small mountain town some 80 miles (130 km) from the city. The book was written shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor and makes several references to America's recent involvement in World War II.
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eerace Kingsley, a wealthy businessman, hires Marlowe to find his estranged wife, Crystal. Kingsley had received a telegram from Crystal about two weeks before stating that she was divorcing him and marrying her gigolo boyfriend, Chris Lavery. But when Kingsley ran into him, Lavery had claimed that he hadn't seen her and didn't know where she was.
Marlowe begins his investigation with a visit to Lavery in the neighbouring town of Bay City. But while watching Lavery's house, Marlowe is threatened by the tough cop Al Degarmo, who suspects him of harassing Lavery's neighbour, Dr. Almore. Marlowe discovers that Almore's wife had died under suspicious circumstances and that her death was probably hushed up by the police.
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