{"product_id":"9781434439703","title":"Fifty Candles (Expanded Edition): By the Creator of Charlie Chan","description":"Earl Derr Biggers (1884-1933) is best remembered as the creator of Chinese detective Charlie Chan.Biggers had always been interested in mystery fiction, but his interest in Hawaii clearly stems from a 1919 vacation in Honolulu. While there, he read a newspaper article on a Chinese detective named Chang Apana. Apana would become the model for Charlie Chan in Biggers' 1925 novel, \"The House Without a Key,\" and there quickly followed five more Charlie Chan novels. Fifty Candles -- first published just two years after that 1919 vacation -- shows how Hawaii, China, and murder had already begun to come together in Biggers' imagination. The story starts in a courthouse in Honolulu, moves to China, then to fog-shrouded San Francisco. Many of the elements used in the Charlie Chan series are present: Chinese characters (both sinister and sympathetic), the Honolulu legal system, a shrewd detective (in this case, the lawyer Mark Drew rather than a policemen), and a baffling murder complete with red herrings and plenty of suspects. This special edition includes John Betancourt's introduction from the 2001 paperback edition, plus a bonus short story, \"The Way to the Island\" -- a long-lost Earl Derr Biggers tale!","brand":"Wildside Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47128131961072,"sku":"9781434439703","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781434439703_p0.jpg?v=1763752643","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781434439703","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}