Earl Derr Biggers 
The House Without a Key 

Charlie Chan, the first Chinese detective in literature, is modeled after Chang Apana, a real-life police detective in Honolulu. A family originally from Boston, the Winterslips, has some members living in Hawaii. You can almost feel the gentle trade winds of Hawaii during the 1920s in this classic novel by Earl Derr Biggers. One of the wealthy Winterslips living in Hawaii is murdered. A younger member of the family, John Quincy Winterslip, has been sent to Boston to check up on his Aunt Minerva and persuade her to return to Boston. He arrives in Honolulu and gets involved in the investigation and is determined to see it through to the end, before he returns to the mainland. Romantic and full of atmosphere, this is a most enjoyable read that was our first introduction to Charlie Chan.