The Lady in the Lake

Marlowe is the first-person protagonist and narrator of Raymond Chandler’s The Lady in the Lake and several of Chandler’s other novels, beginning with The Big Sleep (1939). Marlowe is a private investigator known for being down on his luck, but very intelligent and full of quips. He is old enough, and experienced enough, to have earned a jaded, seen-it-all perspective. Many characters refer to Marlowe as a “wise guy, knows all the answers” (115) and “the fellow that knows all the answers” (182). He is the one who unravels the mystery and gives the reader—through dialogue with the other characters—answers at the end of the novel. Marlowe’s status as a private detective marks him as an outsider, and as he works Kingsley’s case, he runs into trouble with establishment figures in both the criminal and law-enforcement worlds.

Marlowe’s keen investigative instincts mean that he is often the first to stumble across evidence of a crime, and this apparent serendipity sometimes causes him to come under suspicion. He is present when Crystal’s corpse, which is believed to be Muriel’s, is discovered in Little Fawn Lake. He is also the one who discovers Lavery’s corpse.