Charlie Chan is back! Earl Derr Biggers' crackling six-volume series featuring the clever, chubby Chinese Detective of the Honolulu Police Department, is coming back into print. Biggers brings Honolulu to life with his deft descriptions of the landscape and its hybrid ethnic communities. And with the creation of Inspector Chan, Biggers also shatters stereotypes and is ahead of his time in highlighting the positive aspects of Chinese-Hawaiian culture. In this first novel, published in 1925, Chan comes to the aid of an aristocratic Boston family who find themselves in dire straits over what has befallen Dan Winterslip, the black sheep of the family, who lives in a mansion on Waikiki Beach—the house without a key. The troubles begin when a young nephew is dispatched by the family in Boston to retrieve a wayward aunt who has overstayed her welcome in Dan Winterslip's house.

A mysterious millionaire with a penchant for strange pets takes a flyer on a string of pearls and finds that death is the broker. "Charlie Chan embarks on an incognito journey across the desert to find the answer to a question - a question posed by a dead parrot who spoke in Chinese . . . "

The third novel in the Charlie Chan series.set almost exclusively in California (as opposed to Chan's native Hawaii), and tells the story of the former head of Scotland Yard, a detective who is pursuing the long-cold trail of a murderer. Fifteen years ago, a London solicitor was killed in circumstances in which the only clue was a pair of Chinese slippers, which he apparently donned just before his death. Sir Frederic Bruce has been following the trail of the killer ever since. He has also been interested in what appears to be a series of disappearing women around the world, which has some connection to the disappearance of a woman named Eve Durand in rural India also fifteen years ago. Just when it seems he might finally solve the murder case, at a dinner party to which a number of important and mysterious guests have been invited, Inspector Bruce is killed—and was last seen wearing a pair of Chinese slippers, which have vanished. It is left to Chan to solve the case and tie up all loose ends.

Shelah Fane was known and loved throughout the world as a sultry goddess of the silver screen. When her glorious career came to a brutal end one moonlit night in Hawaii—stabbed to death on the tranquil beach of Waikiki—thousands clamored for the murder of their favorite star. "Death is the black camel that kneels unbidden at every gate," Charlie Chan tells the guests present at the actress' pavillion at the time of her murder. But as the detective digs deeper into the case, he finds an interrelated crime to investigate—a murky Hollywood mystery from the past. Through the confusion of alibis, false clues, and bizarre characters, Chan moves with the utmost calm—until the classic "gathering of suspects" climax, when his form of justice hits with shattering force.

In Room 28 on the 3rd floor of Broome's super-respectable hotel in London, lay an American tourist, one Hugh Morris Drake, kindly automobile manufacturer from Detroit. He had been murdered in the night. Drake was a member of a round-the-world travel party, and before Inspector Duff of Scotland Yard could discover any convincing evidence, the group was moving on. By train and ship they widened the distance between themselves and Broome's Hotel, while Death hovered like a brooding hawk above, and Duff tried frantically to get the answer to the puzzle. How Charlie Chan comes into it, the reader will want to discover for himself. Suffice it to say that he does come in—the same old Charlie with his fresh aphorisms and delicious mannerisms ... \\\* CONTENTS: CHAPTER I - RAIN IN PICCADILLY CHAPTER II - FOG AT BROOME'S HOTEL CHAPTER III - THE MAN WITH A WEAK HEART CHAPTER IV - DUFF OVERLOOKS A CLUE CHAPTER V - LUNCHEON AT THE MONICO CHAPTER VI - TEN-FORTY-FIVE FROM VICTORIA CHAPTER VII - AN ADMIRER OF SCOTLAND YARD CHAPTER VIII - FOG ON THE RIVIERA CHAPTER IX - DUSK AT SAN REMO CHAPTER X - THE DEAFNESS OF MR. DRAKE CHAPTER XI - THE GENOA EXPRESS CHAPTER XII - THE JEWELER IN CHOWWRINGHEE ROAD CHAPTER XIII - A KNOCK AT CHARLIE'S DOOR CHAPTER XIV - DINNER ON PUNCHBOWL HILL CHAPTER XV - BOUND EAST FROM HONOLULU CHAPTER XVI - THE MALACCA STICK CHAPTER XVII - THE GREAT EASTERN LABEL CHAPTER XVIII - MAXY MINCHIN'S PARTY CHAPTER XIX - THE FRUITFUL TREE CHAPTER XX - MISS PAMELA MAKES A LIST CHAPTER XXI - THE PROMENADE DES ANGLAIS CHAPTER XXII - TIME TO FISH CHAPTER XXIII - TIME TO DRY THE NETS