Earl Derr Biggers

In the 6th and final book in the mystery series featuring the Chinese-American detective Charlie Chan, we find our hero in Lake Tahoe, California. Chan has been invited as a house guest. He meets a glamorous Out of Printera singer, Ellen Landini, and she is murdered by a gunshot during a party. Her servants and four of her ex-husbands are suspects in the case, all with weak alibis. It is up to Chan to solve the murder. The clues are cryptic and misleading by nature: the singer's own revolver, two scarves, two cigarette boxes with mismatched lids, and the actions of a little dog named Trouble. Part of the solution to the mystery involves an elderly Chinese servant named Ah Sing--the keeper of the keys. Chan solves the case in his usual understated, spectacular fashion.

In this 5th installment of the classic series of mysteries featuring Charlie Chan of the Honolulu Police, we meet Scotland Yard's Inspector Duff, first introduced in Behind That Curtain. Duff is pursuing a callous murderer on an around-the-world tour, and it is only when the ship is docked in Honolulu and Duff is gravely wounded, does Charlie Chan take on the case. This is decidedly unfortunate for the guilty party, because Chan has the culprit well in-hand before the ship makes its final stOut of Print in San Francisco.

1926. The character of Charlie Chan was based in part on the experiences of two Chinese detectives, Chang Apana and Lee Fook, who Biggers had read about in a Honolulu newspaper while on vacation. Biggers wrote six Charlie Chan mysteries. The Chinese Parrot is the second book in the series and begins: Alexander Eden stepped from the misty street into the great, marble-pillared room where the firm of Meek and Eden offered its wares. Immediately, behind showcases gorgeous with precious stones or bright with silver, platinum and gold, forty resplendent clerks stood at attention. Their morning coats were impeccable, lacking the slightest suspicion of a wrinkle, and in the left lapel of each was a pink carnation, as fresh and perfect as though it had grown there.