Books with author Earl Derr Biggers

The son of Robert J. and Emma E. (Derr) Biggers, Earl Derr Biggers was born in Warren, Ohio, and graduated from Harvard University in 1907. He worked as a journalist for The Plain Dealer before turning to fiction. Many of his plays and novels were made into movies. He was posthumously inducted into the Warren City Schools Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame. His novel Seven Keys to Baldpate was popular in 1913, and George M. Cohan quickly adapted the novel as a hit Broadway stage play of the same name. Cohan starred in the 1917 film version, one of seven film versions of the play, and a 1935 revival. The novel was also adapted into two films with different titles, House of the Long Shadows and Haunted Honeymoon, but they had essentially equivalent plots. More than 10 years after Baldpate, Derr Biggers had even greater success with his series of Charlie Chan detective novels. The popularity of Charlie Chan extended even to China, where audiences in Shanghai appreciated the Hollywood films. Chinese companies made films starring this fictional character.Derr Biggers publicly acknowledged the real-life detective Chang Apana as the inspiration for the character of Charlie Chan in his letter to the Honolulu Advertiser of June 28, 1932.

Allan, Lord Harrowby, son and heir of James Nelson Harrowby, came to Lloyds of London with a most unusual request for insurance. He knew that Lloyds took out policies on unusual risks. And what he wanted was insurance of a most unusual kind...love insurance. What follows is a comic novel of improbable dimensions, by the world-famous creator of Chinese detective Charlie Chan!

It is the first of the Charlie Chan mysteries written by Biggers. The novel, which takes place in 1920s Hawaiʻi, spends time acquainting the reader with the look and feel of the islands of that era from the standpoint of both white and non-white inhabitants, and describes social class structures and customs which have largely vanished in the 21st century. The novel deals with the murder of a former member of Boston society who has lived in Hawaiʻi for a number of years. The main character is the victim's nephew, a straitlaced young Bostonian bond trader, who came to the islands to try to convince his aunt Minerva, whose vacation has extended many months, to return to Boston. The nephew, John Quincy Winterslip, soon falls under the spell of the islands himself, meets an attractive young woman, breaks his engagement to his straitlaced Bostonian fiancee Agatha, and decides as the murder is being solved to move to San Francisco. In the interval, he is introduced to many levels of Hawaiian society and is of some assistance to Detective Charlie Chan in solving the mystery.

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.

When a famous author comes to the closed-up summer resort at Balpate Mountain in the dead of winter, he expects to find peace and quiet in which to write his next book, his literary masterpiece. But before his first night is out, a steady stream of unexpected visitors begins to fill the hotel . . . secretive and sometimes dangerous men and women with stories of love, loss, and flight . . . and none of them are telling the truth. A fortune is at stake, and they will do anything to possess it. For some it means wealth. For others it means power. And some need it as a point of honor. Before the week is over, there will be gunfire, bribery, fights in the snow, and hidden truths unmasked. "Seven Keys to Baldpate" is a mystery that will leave you guessing to the end! Earl Derr Biggers penned "Seven Keys to Baldpate" long before he created his most famous character, Chinese detective Charlie Chan, yet in its day it was a popular best-seller and became the source for no less than seven films.

From the records of the district court at Honolulu for the year 1898 you may, if you have patience, unearth the dim beginnings of this story of the fifty candles. It is a story that stretches over twenty years, all the way from that bare Honolulu courtroom to a night of fog and violence in San Francisco. Many months after the night of the tule-fog, I happened into the Hawaiian capital and took down from a library shelf a big legal-looking book, bound in bright yellow leather the color of a Filipino houseboy’s shoes on his SaturdcCHAPTFay night in town. I found what I was looking for under the heading: “In the Matter of Chang See.” The Chinese, we are told, are masters of indirection, of saying one thing and meaning another, of arriving at their goal by way of a devious, irrelevant maze. Our legal system must have been invented and perfected by Chinamen—but is this lèse majesté or contempt of court or something? Beyond question the decision of the learned court in the matter of Chang See, as set down in the big yellow book, is obscured and befuddled by a mass of unspeakably dreary words. See 21 Cyc., 317 Church Habeas Corpus, 2d Ed., Sec. 169. By all means consult Kelley v. Johnson, 31 U. S. (6 Pet.) 622, 631-32. And many more of the same sort.

THE BLACK CAMEL BY EARL DER BIGGERS. A CHARLIE CHAN MYSTERY. DEATH DESCENDS AT WAIKIKI A BEAUTIFUL MOVIE ACTRESS IS STABBED TO DEATH AMIDST THE TRANQUIL SURROUNDINGS OF WAIKIKI BEACH. THOUSANS CLAMORED FOR THE MURDERER OF THEIR FAVORITE STAR-"A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN OF FLAME, FLICKERED, AND DEAD, LIKE A CANDLE IN A RESTLESS TRADE WIND." THROUGH THE CONFUSION OF ALIBIS, FALSE CLUES AND A WEIRD CRYSTAL GAZER, CHARLIE CHAN, PHILOSOPHICAL DETECTIVE, MOVES WITH UTMOST CALM. "HURRY IS THE WIND THAT DESTROYS THE SCAFFOLDING," SAYS THE FAT AND PERSPIRING CHAN. BUT AT THE FORTY-EIGHTH HOUR THE TANGLED SKEIN UNRAVELS TO REVEAL A NERVE TINGLING SOLUTION! "DEATH IS THE BLACK CAMEL THAT KNEELS UN BIDDEN AT EVERY GATE," CHAN TELLS THE GUESTS PRESENT AT THE MOVIE ACTRESS'S PAVILLION AT THE TIME OF HER MURDER. THE CLIMAX BURSTS LIKE A SKYROCKET WHEN HE HAS THEM REENACT THE SCENE AT THE MURDER. A DECIDELY ONE-SITTING BOOK, BY A SUPERB YARN-SPINNER. AS ELMER DAVIS SAYS, "THIS MAN BIGGERS DID EVERYTHING AS IT SHOULD BE DONE, EXACTLY WHEN IT SHOULD BE DONE."

"And so'll you be, most likely," responded the cynic, "if you interfere. No, siree! Take my advice. Shoot old Asquewan's rapids in a barrel if you want to, but keep away from crying women." The heedless Billy Magee, however, was already moving across the unscrubbed floor with chivalrous intention. The girl's trim shoulders no longer heaved so unhappily. Mr. Magee, approaching, thought himself again in the college yard at dusk, with the great elms sighing overhead, and the fresh young voices of the glee club ringing out from the steps of a century-old building.

From the records of the district court at Honolulu for the year 1898 you may, if you have patience, unearth the dim beginnings of this story of the fifty candles. It is a story that stretches over twenty years, all the way from that bare Honolulu courtroom to a night of fog and violence in San Francisco. Many months after the night of the tule-fog, I happened into the Hawaiian capital and took down from a library shelf a big legal-looking book, bound in bright yellow leather the color of a Filipino houseboy's shoes on his Saturday night in town. I found what I was looking for under the heading: "In the Matter of Chang See." The Chinese, we are told, are masters of indirection, of saying one thing and meaning another, of arriving at their goal by way of a devious, irrelevant maze.