The House Without a Key

Earl Derr Biggers' crackling six-volume series featuring the clever, chubby Chinese Detective of the Honolulu Police Department, is coming back into print.


Biggers brings Honolulu to life with his deft descriptions of the landscape and its hybrid ethnic communities. And with the creation of Inspector Chan, Biggers also shatters stereotypes and is ahead of his time in highlighting the positive aspects of Chinese-Hawaiian culture.


In this first novel, published in 1925, Chan comes to the aid of an aristocratic Boston family who find themselves in dire straits over what has befallen Dan Winterslip, the black sheep of the family, who lives in a mansion on Waikiki Beach — the house without a key.


The troubles begin when a young nephew is dispatched by the family in Boston to retrieve a wayward aunt who has overstayed her welcome in Dan Winterslip's house.