Earl Derr Biggers’s A Charlie Chan Omnibus contains the first three 1920s mysteries in the series: “The House Without a Key”, “The Chinese Parrot”, and “Behind That Curtain.” The stories are quite well written with crisp dialogue and the main characters clearly drawn, though the peripheral characters tend to be more like flat caricatures. There’s always a young wisecracking male protagonist, his chaste romantic interest, and the invaluable assistance of Detective Charlie Chan to discover the key piece of evidence to nab the murderer. Biggers has a very winning way of describing the setting, whether it be Hawaii, the California desert, or the streets of San Francisco, always with a colorful evocative touch. The stories are quite convoluted with an abundance of suspects and red herrings, and a solution that only the modest and soft spoken Mr. Chan could discern. ( )

Three case of Charlie Chan –

The House Without a Key -
John Quincy Winterslip to Boston is travelling to Hawaii to convince his Aunt Minerva Winterslip to return back to her home in Boston. A member of a very conservative New England family, she had come to visit nephews and has stayed much longer than the family expected. It is John Quincy’s job to bring her home.

John Quincy has never been further west than New York and finds there is a draw to the California coast and Hawaii that he can’t explain. He meets a girl, on the trip over, that he can’t stop thinking of.

When one of his uncles turns up murdered, he finds himself involved in trying to solve the murder. Investigating, he also learns some family secrets of this branch of the family, while helping Charlie Chan put the clues together. He also finds that the girl he met on the trip over, and her father, are involved.

Behind That Curtain –
Sir Frederic Bruce, former head of the CID at Scotland Yard, has stopped in San Francisco for a few weeks. He is staying in the bungalow penthouse of Barry Kirk, wealthy businessman and owner of the building.

Charlie Chan is also in San Francisco, having recently solved another case. He is waiting for the ship that travels between Hawaii and California that will be taking him back home. There is the birth of a new offspring due any minute and he hopes to be there.

Sir Frederic and Chan are brought together at a dinner, in the bungalow, to have a serious discussion of their methods and experiences in their work. Instead of an interesting social evening, it becomes a murder scene. Sir Frederic is dead and Chan finds himself with a couple of mysteries to solve. Not just the murder of Sir Frederic, but the disappearance of three different women at three different places in time. Is there a link in any of these occurances?

Keeper of the Keys -
Charlie Chan is in the High Sierras to meet with a man about taking on an investigation. Having lived in Hawaii the majority of his life, Charlie finds the mountains exciting and highly interesting, especially the snow.

Dudley Ward, who has invited Charlie to visit, has also invited the other two ex-husbands and her soon-to-be fourth ex-husband to the house. Ward has heard there was a child from their marriage, but his ex had never told him about it. Ward is hoping to find out if it is true and to have Chan find the child.

On impulse, when Ward heard his wife was in the area, he invited her too. Needless to say, when she shows up things get tense. When she is found murdered, there are more than enough suspects with motives.

In all three stories, Chan has a lot to sift through to figure out the solutions. He may be a humble man, but he looks and sees many details. He also asks many questions; some that may not seem important. He isn’t one to jump to conclusions.

Written in 1925, 1928 and 1932, the descriptions of places, mannerisms, clothing, cars and the language is different than today. Instead of recreating an era, these stories are from the era they take place in. For me it is enjoyable to read stories from other eras. A great escape. ( )

Mostly of historical interest. Given the original publication date (1925), surprisingly free of stereotypes; author Earl Derr Biggers reportedly wanted to counteract contemporary images of Chinese as the “Yellow Peril”. In the three novels in this republication (The House Without a Key, The Chinese Parrot, Behind that Curtain) Charlie Chan is not actually the focal point; instead that’s a romance between two Anglo characters who are brought together by the crime under investigation. These are not very satisfying as “detective stories”; in the genre the reader is generally given all the facts in the case up front, and the detective strings them together in the dénouement, so the reader can head-slap herself and say “Oh, why didn’t I see that!”. Instead, here the crucial clues are left to almost the very end and Charlie Chan is portrayed as mystified but patient. In each case, there are schools of red herrings swimming around; sometimes Biggers goes way over the top with these. Since Biggers was a newspaper man, there’s a newspaper man in each story – usually not all that relevant to the plot. Still, they’re light and pleasant reads and worthwhile for the historical value. ( )

I cannot believe that I've gone almost 90 years without reading Charlie Chan. I've heard of it, heard of the movies, but never got around to reading it until now.

It was a while after I bought the book and actually read it, and when it finally reached the top of my to-be-read stack, I was a little apprehensive; I was afraid that it would be quite racist.

It wasn't. Granted, some of the characters (even Charlie Chan) said racist things (the books were, after all, written in the mid-1920s), but the characters themselves weren't racist or sexist caractures.

Earl Derr Biggers was a phenomenal writer, and every book had some fantastic passages. The characters were first-rate, the dialogue believable, and there was nothing that made me stop and go, "Wait...what?"

In all three stories, Mr. Biggers laid all the clues out. There's not the cop-out of the thing that solves the case being something that's never mentioned or shown before the Big Reveal, which is a big pet peeve of mine
Bonus points for inter-story continuity. In The House Without A Key Sergeant Chan mentions his desire to visit the mainland. The next story, The Chinese Parrot starts off with him visiting San Francisco, and Behind That Curtain takes place immediately after the previous story.

The only thing I didn't like about the stories is that, in all three, someone gets engaged to someone they just met by the end of the book. They meet in the beginning, and less than a week later they're going to get married. As Elsa said, "You can't marry someone you just met!"

The House Without a Key is set in Honolulu, and the setting is so brilliant that it not only made me feel like I was there, it made me long to go back and maye even stay. Charlie isn't even introduced until well into the book, and he certainly doesn't feel like the title character. And yet he not only manages to carry the story but make you want to read more.

The best line of the tale: "He was lying on his left side, and as she stared down at him, one of the harmless little Island lizards ran up his chest and over his shoulder...and left a crimson trail on his white pajamas." Just gave me chills.

The Chinese Parrot starts off in San Francisco, but most of the tale is spent in the California desert. Sergeant Chan, who is very intelligent and takes great pride in speaking English as well as he can, spends a good part of the story undercover as a cook and is forced to speak pidgin...and it's painfully obvious that it is killing him. Amusing, and good character work. This story has the most racist quote in the omnibus (which I can't find offhand), in which the man who winds up being the villain describes Louie Wong (the man who was murdered) as nobody important, just a Chinaman.

Behind That Curtain does a fantastic job of taking what appears to be three or four separate puzzles, bringing them together, then making you think that their relation is a red herring, then bringing them all together so that only by understanding the "secondary" mysteries can you unravel the murder. There were several times that I thought, "Well, that went nowhere," only for it to go somewhere.

All in all, this is the best book I remember reading this year. ( )