Title: The Lady in the Lake
Author: Raymond Chandler
Cover artist: [Tom Dunn]
Yours for: $15
Best things about this cover:
- Not my favorite cover, but I love the movie tie-in angle. Audrey Totter died just last month.
- It's a pretty, evocative cover—I like the way the bubbles and her hair float up in soft curves. I also like how her bright purple dress pops against the blue/yellow/green-ness of the rest of the cover.
- Ten years later, this cover would've been way more sexed-up, which I realize is a morbid thing to say about a cover featuring a corpse, but … you know I'm right.
Best things about this back cover:
- Gah. Nothing.
- I like "susceptible blondes," but "moves with the speed and general effect of a well-aimed bullet to its suspected target" is noxious, for more reasons than I care to go into.
- If these scans look a little odd, it's just the permagloss, which is fraying (book still in excellent condition, though)
Page 123~
"Women are always leaving their handkerchiefs around. A fellow like Lavery would collect them and keep them in a drawer with a sandalwood sachet. Somebody would find the stock and take one out to use. Or he would lend them, enjoying the reactions to the other girls' initials. I'd say he was that kind of a heel. Goodby, Miss Fromsett, and thanks for talking to me."
So *that's* what he meant by "The Long Goodbye"—it had an "e" on the end, unlike all his other goodbys, which, apparently, didn't.
~RP
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]
3 comments:
I'm bothered by "Another Philip Marlowe Mystery". That "Another" feels like it's accompanied by an eye-roll. "Aw, geez, not this shit again." Which is an attitude that should never be taken to Chandler's writing. Maybe just "A Philip..." was too short for the look they wanted on the cover?
excellent post , thank you
The version of "The Lady in Lake" that his book ties in to is unique in that it is shot in Marlowe's POV. It is a great movie.
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