"Checkmate " That was the last word uttered to Charlie Chan and Prefect of Police Claude DeBevre by a dying reporter. The man had been murdered . . . stabbed to death and left to die in a vacant hotel room. It is the second murder in 24 hours at the Transcontinental Chess Tournament, and Charlie Chan has been summoned from a peaceful and long-deserved vacation to help solve the crime before international scandal ruins the tournament's good name Originally published in Charlie Chan's Mystery Magazine in 1974, this is the first book appearance of The Pawns of Death.

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.

Earl Biggers was the creator of the Chinese detective Charlie Chan. Biggers was an American novelist and playwright. He is remembered primarily for adaptations of his novels, especially those featuring Charlie Chan. The Agony Column was published in 1916. It was also published under the title Second Floor Mystery. The London Times had a second column called the Agony Column. This was similar to the personals in today's newspapers. Geoffrey West is an American in London. He is reading the Agony Column when a beautiful American girl sits near him reading the paper to her father. Geoffrey is...

In Biggers' final novel, Charlie Chan is invited to millionaire Dudley Ward's home in Lake Tahoe to try to find his missing son. However the murder of Dudley Ward's ex-wife, the soprano Ellen Landini, soon occupies his complete attention, and potential suspects abound. He examines the evidence but seems unable to persuade Ah Sing, the titular keeper of the keys, to break his loyal silence and give him the key to solving the mystery.

Behind That Curtain (1928) is the third novel in the Charlie Chan series of mystery novels by Earl Derr Biggers. It is set almost exclusively in California (as opposed to Chan's native Hawaii), and tells the story of the former head of Scotland Yard, a detective who is pursuing the long-cold trail of a murderer. Fifteen years ago, a London solicitor was killed in circumstances in which the only clue was a pair of Chinese slippers, which he apparently donned just before his death. Sir Frederic Bruce has been following the trail of the killer ever since. He has also been interested in what...