Raymond Chandler: Later Novels and Other Writings (LOA #80): The Lady in the Lake / The Little Sister / The Long Goodbye / Playback / Double Indemnity (screenplay) / essays and letters

With humor, along with an unerring sense of dialogue and the telling details of dress and behavior, Raymond Chandler created a distinctive fictional universe out of the dark side of sunlit Los Angeles. In the process, he transformed both crime writing and the American language.

Written during the war, The Lady in the Lake (1943) takes Philip Marlowe out of the seamy L.A. streets to the deceptive tranquility of the surrounding mountains, as the search for a businessman’s missing wife expands ...