For many Charlie Chan is known only by the 43 films starring the character. There were only six books written by Earl Derr Biggers from 1925 until 1932. The character of Charlie Chan was based on a real life detective named Chang Apana who worked for the Honolulu Police Department. Biggers had met the detective while vacationing in Hawaii and decided to base his character on him. The books differ greatly from the movies and it is the books that I will be discussing.
All of the books have things in common. In every story there is a love interest with a brash young man and a feisty young lady. They are involved in some way with the deceased and help investigate. In all the stories Charlie Chan always displays a great deal of humility. I grew up in the San Francisco area and know from friends there that humility is a valued virtue. There is an element of the sage in Charlie Chan. I recognized an almost Zen approach to what he has to say. Biggers appears to have a great deal of respect for the Chinese people. However it doesn’t stop him from having many of his characters speak with the stereotype singsong accent although he emphasized that Chan tries to speak properly. Biggers also exhibits a decided prejudice towards the Japanese. Often times in the books the character of Charlie Chan doesn’t appear until around the middle of the story.
The first book in the series is The House Without A Key. The book introduces the Bostonian Winterslip family. Dan Winterslip has people who both love and hate him. He is the definite black sheep of the family. His cousin Minerva Winterslip had stopped by for a visit to Hawaii and fell in love with the country and is in no hurry to get back. Her nephew John Quincy Winterslip has been sent by the family to come and persuade her to return. He is young and as stiff necked as they come. The family feels that Hawaii cannot seduce him. John is met in San Francisco by Dan’s cousin Roger and he suddenly feels at home in the City by the Bay. On the trip out to Hawaii he meets Dan’s daughter Barbara, his lawyer Harry Jennison, and the beautiful Cary Egan. While the boat is in overnight quarantine in the harbor Dan is murdered. Minerva finds the body. She is appalled by the appearance of a Chinese detective. Dan’s estranged brother Amos tells her that Chan is the best detective on the Islands.
Miss Minerva faced Chan. “The person who did this must be apprehended,” she said firmly.
He looked at her sleepily. “What is to be, will be,” he replied in a high, sing-song voice.
“I know – that’s your Confucius,” she snapped. “But it’s a do-nothing doctrine, and I don’t approve of it.”
A faint smile flickered over Chan’s face. “Do not fear,” he said. “The fates are busy, and man may do much to assist. I promise you there will be no do-nothing here.” He came closer. “Humbly asking pardon to mention it, I detect in your eyes slight flare of hostility. Quench it, if you will be so kind. Friendly cooperation are essential between us.”
John Quincy falls for Cary and as her father is a suspect in the death he works to try and clear his name. The story has shadows in the past of the late 1890’s. The story has red herrings but plays essentially fair with the reader. Biggers was quite obviously enamored by Hawaii and you can tell he was seduced by its charm in the way he writes about it. Honolulu becomes a major character in the story.
The second book is called The Chinese Parrot. This story takes places in California. Sally Jordan is hard up for money and is forced to sell the Phillimore pearls. She chooses her old friend Alexander Eden to take care of the transaction. He offers them to a ruthless businessman named P.J. Madden, who wants them for his spoiled daughter, Evelyn. The pearls are being brought over from Hawaii by a family friend who turns out to be Charlie Chan. Madden insists that the pearls be turned over to him in New York. A phone call comes shortly after changing the instructions to bring the pearls to him at his desert estate near El Dorado. Eden’s son Bob is chosen to go with Charlie Chan to deliver the pearls. However everyone is edgy and not sure that the change of plans is on the up and up. Madden’s servant, Louie Wong, has suddenly left to go to San Francisco. Charlie Chan goes undercover as his replacement. Wong has an old parrot that speaks Chinese. This parrot gives a vital clue to what is going on. There is a cast of unsavory characters including Madden’s secretary Martin Thorn and a couple of people who suddenly show up at the place. Will Holley is the editor of a small town newspaper and befriends Bob Eden. Eden meets the beautiful Paula Wendell whose job it is to scout locations for the movies. The parrot ends up murdered and when his owner Louise Wong suddenly shows back up he meets the same fate.
“Most unfortunate, this thing tonight,” says Chan thoughtfully. “Humbly suggest you be very careful, or everything spoils. Local police come thumping on to scene, not dreaming in their slight brains that murder of Louie are of no importance in the least.”
“Not important, you say?”
“Well, it was pretty important to Louie, I guess,” said Eden.
“Guess so too. But murder of Louie just like death of parrot – one more dark deed occurring here before we arrive on mysterious scene.”
The book goes on to involve actors in films and people acting parts in real life. I found the solution to be very ingenious and one that I did not expect at all.
The third book in the series is called Behind That Curtain. Charlie Chan is still in San Francisco having decided to stay for a few days to recover from the events in The Chinese Parrot. While he is there he meets Sir Frederic Bruce, a retired Scotland Yard detective. Bruce is trying to solve an old murder and the disappearance of three women. He believes the cases are interconnected and the solution may be in San Francisco. Bruce is staying with Barry Kirk in his penthouse apartment. Kirk’s love interest turns out to be June Morrow who works for the District Attorney’s Office. A dinner party at Kirk’s penthouse introduces the main characters. Bill Rankin is a journalist. Kirk’s eccentric grandmother Mrs. Dawson Kirk has a very proper British secretary names Mrs. Tupper-Brock. Carrick and Eileen Enderby are a young couple. He is stodgy and she is vivacious. Colonel John Beecham is an explorer and brings reels to show of some of his exotic trips. Gloria Garland is a theatrical actress. Captain Flannery is the detective in charge who resents the female D.A. and especially Charlie Chan. Miss Morrow and Chan both believe that it is the disappearance fifteen years previously of Eve Durand that is behind the murder of Sir Frederic Bruce who is found murdered during the showing of Beecham’s movies.
“You still appear in baffled stage,” Chan suggested.
“Sure I do,” admitted the Captain. “I am. And how about you? I don’t hear any illuminating deductions from you.”
“At any moment now,” grinned Chan, “I may dazzle you with great light.”
“Well, don’t hurry on my account,” advised Flannery. “We’ve got all year on this, of course. It’s only Sir Frederic Bruce of Scotland Yard who was murdered. Nobody cares – except the whole British Empire.”
Inspector Duff arrives from Scotland Yard with Major Durand. The story continues with a conclusion that was very clever.
The fourth book in the series is The Black Camel. Again Biggers delves into the world of actors. Shelah Fane is a star of the silver screen. She arrives in Honolulu to finish up a movie that was started in Tahiti. A British businessman named Alan Jaynes has fallen in love with her and wants to marry her. She refuses to give him an answer until after she has consulted with the mysterious Tarneverro, a “psychic” who is all the rage in the show business world. The young lovers in the story are Jim Bradshaw, whose is a PR person for Hawaii’s Tourist Bureau and Julie O’Neill, who is Miss Fane’s secretary. Shelah throws a party at her rented house where we meet most of the rest of the cast of characters. Jessop is the proper British butler. Bob Fyfe is an actor and Shelah’s first husband. Diana Dixon is a starlet and in the movie. Rita Ballou is a former actress now unhappily married to the very rich Wilkie Ballou. Huntley Van Horn is the male star of the picture. Val Martino is the producer of the film. Shelah Fane is found murdered in the pavilion of the property she is renting. Her death appears to have a connection with the death three years earlier of actor Denny Mayo.
“Good lord!” The Britisher looked helplessly at Wilkie Ballou. “What kind of place is this? Why don’t they send a white man out here?”
A rare light flashed suddenly in Charlie’s eyes. “The man who is about to cross a stream should not revile the crocodile’s mother,” he said in icy tones.
“What do you mean by that?” Jaynes asked.
“I mean you are not safely on the farther bank.”
“You know damn well I’ve got an alibi,” cried the Britisher angrily.
Chan’s little eyes surveyed him from head to foot. “I am not so sure I do,” he remarked calmly.
The story carries on as alibis are made and destroyed. Tarneverro appears on the surface to be trying to help Chan. But is he really? The story comes to a satisfactory conclusion.
The fifth book in the series is Charlie Chan Carries On and for some reason is one of the more difficult books to find. The story is interesting because Charlie Chan does not appear until almost half way through the story. The story starts in London where an American tourist, Hugh Morris Drake, is found strangled. He is on an around the world cruise. Everyone says what a sweet man he was and no one can figure out why he was killed. Enter Inspector Duff, whom we first met in Behind That Curtain. The main characters are part of the tour group led by Doctor Loften. The other travelers are Pamela Potter who is Drake’s granddaughter and her mother, Walter Honywood who is a highly nervous producer and the estranged husband of actress Sybil Conway, Patrick Tait who is a retired criminal lawyer with a bad heart, Mark Kennaway who is a recent graduate with a legal degree who is acting as Tait’s traveling companion and who will become the love interest of Pamela Potter, brother and sister Norman and Laura Fenwick who are the complainers of the group, the rather slimy Stuart Vivian who is carrying on with the married Mrs. Spicer, Ronald Keane who makes a habit of listening at doors, Elmer Benbow and his omnipresent camera and his wife, Max Minchin who is a retired Chicago gangster and his wife who collects fine jewelry, and Mrs. Luce who hales from Pasadena and has traveled for much of her 72 years.
In the course of their travels Honywood and his wife are also murdered. Inspector Duff is sent to the United States to follow up some clues and ends up in Honolulu where he meets his old friend Charlie Chan. He is shot while in Charlie’s office and asks his friend to take over to find the murderer who has also killed a young Scotland Yard undercover agent. Chan takes Duff’s place on the ship that is taking people to San Francisco on the last leg of their journey.
“Now I replace poor Duff.”
Lofton stared at him “You!” he cried rudely.
“Why not?” asked Charlie blandly.
“Well, no reason, I suppose. You’ll pardon me, but my nerves have been completely upset by the events of the last few months. Thank God, we break up at San Francisco, and it’s a question in my mind if I ever go out again. I’ve been thinking of retiring, and this is as good a time as any.”
“Whether you do or not is a private and personal matter,” Chan told him. “What is not so private is, name of killer who has honored you with his presence on this journey? It is an affair I am here to look into, with full authority to do so.”
Charlie Chan is able to discover the identity of the very clever killer. In spite of his late appearance in the story I think this is one of the best of the series.
The sixth and last book is called Keeper of the Keys. Charlie has stayed over from his trip to San Francisco to help Dudley Ward find out whether the rumors that he has a son are true. Ward is one of the ex-husbands of famed opera singer Ellen Landini. Ward is gathering all of Landini’s ex-husbands at his place in Lake Tahoe. The men are unaware that he has also invited Landini and her current flame. The other characters are ex-husbands John Ryder who is an old friend of Ward’s, Doctor Frederic Swan who is also a blackmailer, Luis Romano who is in the process of being divorced by Landini, Hugh Beaton a young singer and Landini’s current boy toy and his sister Leslie who of course is destined to be the love interest, Michael Ireland who is a pilot and former lover of Landini’s and his very jealous wife Cecile, Ah Sing who is an elderly servant who has been with the Ward family for over sixty years, Don Holt who is the young sheriff and his father Sam Holt who was the former sheriff and now blind. Ellen Landini ends up dead and the Sheriff Don Holt asks Charlie Chan to help him with the case. Chan and Sam Holt both realize that one of the keys to the case is Ah Sing who is not inclined to be helpful. Dr. Swan finds out that blackmail can be deadly as he too is killed.
“Enough!” Charlie cried. He glanced uneasily around at the other people in the room and spoke in Cantonese.” Do not poke your finger through your own paper lantern. The luck in running high for you tonight, ancient one. Be cautious, lest the heart of the law yet harden against you.”
I found this book to be the best of the series. The solution was one that I did not see coming but when it was revealed it made sense.
I thought the whole series was well written. Considering the time in which the books were written I felt that the character of Charlie Chan was surprisingly strong and sympathetic. It was obvious that Biggers had an admiration for the Chinese and was trying to counteract the prevailing depiction of the Chinese at that time in the mold of Fu Manchu. There are elements that are a bit uncomfortable to read especially when Biggers goes into the pidgin English for some of the characters. He also does stereotype dialog with white characters. The books are good mysteries and also a slice of time from a different era. I recommend them highly.