Chinese Mystery English

A puzzling publishing murder attracts the eye of Ellery Queen. Mandarin Press is a premier publishing house for foreign literature, but to those at the top of this enterprise, there is little more beautiful than a rare stamp. As Donald Kirk, publisher and philatelist, prepares his office for a banquet, an unfamiliar man comes to call. No one recognizes him, but Kirk’s staff is used to strange characters visiting their boss, so Kirk’s secretary asks him to wait in the anteroom.

Shanghai in the 20s was a fabulous place, a gaudy, immoral, violent, unjust, optimistic free-for-all where rickshaws competed with Rolls-Royces and a wealthy Englishman, American, or Japanese who spent an afternoon at the dog races might be inconvenienced by the sight of a public beheading on his way to the club for cocktails. It was also an improbable model for the future where racial barriers were rigid in certain neighborhoods and completely lacking in others only a few blocks away.

Biff Brewster heads to Burma to visit his uncle, Charles Keene. His trip to the Far East is evidently of interest to other people. When he arrives in Burma, a kidnap attempt occurs at the airport. He doesn't understand why but escapes back to the airline terminal. An employee of Charles Keene finds Biff and takes him to Explorations Unlimited, Charles Keene's company. Biff discovers his uncle is missing in Communist China and decides to find and rescue him. During the rescue, Biff discovers a secret Chinese base whose knowledge is valuable to the United States.

An unusual call from Chinese merchant Ling Tang began an on-going set of circumstances for young Biff Brewster. He was planning a trip to Rangoon in Burma to visit his Uncle Charlie. It seemed such a trip for Biff would be a good way to spend the remainder of his summer vacation from school. It was a pleasant thought for beginning something very different to look forward to. However, “different” isn’t a strong enough description of what was going to happen.

The story you’re about to hear is the second Charlie Chan novel, and it features a parrot named Tony who is witness to a crime. The unusual bird spoke Chinese and had a less-than-perfect use of English grammar but was killed by the criminals as a precaution. Chan himself was a friend of a family selling jewels and agreed to deliver them on his first trip to mainland California. While there he masquerades as a pidgin-speaking cook during his undercover investigation. His profound and original intelligence offers genial humor and witty dialogue.