THE LADY IN THE LAKE

Raymond Chandler and Elliott Gould prove to be a winning combination. Starting with the drowned lady in the lake, dead bodies pile up, unrelated story lines twist around each other, police corruption is exposed, and the sleazy underbelly of 1940s Los Angeles is revealed, all with Chandler's flat irony and blunt honesty. Gould gets it just right, the flatness, the dryness, the weariness. He gives characters subtle individual voices, resisting the temptation to overdramatize. The abridgment works smoothly, but I would have liked to hear more. E.S. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/SEP 02]