Earl Derr Biggers

Keeper of the Keys 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. Earl Derr Biggers was an American novelist and playwright best remembered for his detective novels featuring the fictional Chinese American detective Charlie Chan, from which many films were made. His first successful novel Seven Keys to Baldpate became a hit Broadway stage play, and later adapted to seven different film versions. More than 10 years after this early success Biggers had even greater success with his series of Charlie Chan detective novels whose popularity extended even to China, where audiences in Shanghai appreciated these Hollywood films