Getting the first three was easy because they are on Google Books for just a couple of dollars each. But when I got to the fourth in the list, things became complicated. Or so I thought. Well, put it this way, the last three aren’t available individually on Google Books or Amazon’s Kindle. So I dug around online and realized there are several “collections” of his books. At least in print. The prices are all over the place, though.
I finally hit pay dirt. I discovered The Greatest Mysteries of Earl Derr Biggers: 11 Titles In One Volume on Google Play.
For 99 cents. Seriously, the prices of these books are all over the place.
Now I have not only all six Charlie Chan books in one volume but also five of Bigger’s earlier mysteries. There’s one of those in particular that I really want to read. (After I finish the Chan books that is.) Apparently before Biggers visited Hawaii and created Chan, he was a fairly successful author and screenwriter. Love Insurance is apparently a screwball romantic comedy/mystery. Which sounds a lot like the basic template for some the early Hollywood screwball comedy movies. Coincidence? Hmmm.
And, you know, I can see that connection too. It also clarifies what he was doing in the first few Chan books. If Charlie Chan was taken out they would be a romantic mysteries. Fairly light-hearted, at that, and just a smidge away from being comedies. In that first Hawaii set book, though, he adds in this very island specific character in Chan. Then Charlie slowly takes over more and more of the story with each successive book. I just finished the fourth, The Black Camel, and Detective Lieutenant Charlie Chan is pretty much driving the story in it. It’s fascinating how he’s evolving as a character.
Now off to finish the last two. Then I’ll do a post on all of them as a series before starting on the earlier books.