The House without a Key / Earl Derr Biggers

The House without a Key
by Earl Derr Biggers
Charlie Chan (1)

mystery

copyright 1925
read in June 2013

rated 7/10: well worth reading

Goodness me ! a Charlie Chan omnibus ! I've seen five minutes of a Charlie Chan movie. And enjoyed the Chinese detective who has helped Maxwell Smart. But I have never read nor watched a complete Chan story...

Until now !

Is it just my era, or is Charlie Chan still an iconic figure in film and literature ? No matter.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book :-)

I didn't know what to expect. The introduction almost put me off, so I skipped most of it. The story -- is a lot of fun.

The characters are straight from Wodehouse via Boston. The action is slow, the humor is light and pleasant. Best of all -- the mystery makes sense.

Sometime in the past I must have read a mystery novel. I'm sure that I've watched more than one mystery on TV. The one thing in common is, that the resolution of the mystery is a riddle wrapped in an enigma. As far as I can tell, the final and definitive clue is only provided as the detective states the solution.

"What no-one knew," says the detective, on the last page but one, "Is that Mr X is the victim's second cousin twice removed, that he was in the conservatory just after midnight -- despite all prior evidence to the contrary -- and that the innocuous flower which no-one has, till now, mentioned, is the only known breeding ground for the deadly black-throated spider ! Which leads to... the inevitable conclusion... that the murder was really suicide !" Oh yeah ?!

Charlie Chan puts forward a whole lot of clues. These lead to a string of suspects. Who are eliminated -- as suspects, that is, -- one by one. The final clue is not obvious. But it is presented early enough for the reader to -- with luck ! -- almost beat the hero to the correct conclusion. Or, at least, to keep up as all is revealed.

Oh, and "hero" ? Charlie Chan is not the hero. The hero is one of the Wodehouse characters... Chan solves the case and gathers conclusive evidence. The hero has a leap of strong intuition, just in time to prevent the villain from escaping. And the hero gets the girl.

Chan is essential to the story. Yet not -- yet ? -- the central character.

My book is three novels in an omnibus. I look forward to seeing how Chan develops in the next two stories.

So far... so good.

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Problems ? Solved