Lois Fox, upon whose shoulder is branded a Chinese idiograph resembling the letters "A. Y.," is rescued from a gang of Chinese ruffians by Brice Ferris. His servant Ming, in attempting to steal from her finger a ring that bears a mysterious green seal, is killed, and soon afterward a stranger named Strang arrives, also in search of the girl. Despite Brice's efforts to protect her, Lois is abducted and taken to the headquarters of Lao Wing, the leader of a secret Chinese society known as the Tong.
A gang of crooks are employed to get possession of valuable papers of international importance, held by the French Ambassador, Vicomte de Jarlais. They are also instructed to get the Ambassador out of the way and make it appear that he has committed suicide. His mysterious disappearance arouses the United States Secret Service officers
Lionel Twain invites the world's five greatest detectives to a 'dinner and murder'. Included are a blind butler, a deaf-mute maid, screams, spinning rooms, secret passages, false identities and more plot turns and twists than are decently allowed.
Louis and August Siever, the twins sons of a German father and American mother, are traveling in Europe when war breaks out. August joins the Kaiser's army, but Louis, a supporter of the United States, is practically made a prisoner in Berlin for a year while he tries to prove his American citizenship. After a violent confrontation with Louis, August steals his brother's passport and leaves for New York with Gerda Anderson, a German spy.
Charlie is the intended murder victim here, and he avoids death only by chance. To find the murderer (since, of course, murder does occur), Charlie must outguess Scotland Yard and New York City police.
Charlie is hired to deliver a pearl necklace to a millionaire at his ranch. When murder intervenes he disguises himself as a Chinese servant and begins sleuthing.
While visiting the circus with his family, Charlie is recruited by the big top's co-owner to investigate threatening letters that he's received.
When a friend of Charlie's is found kicked to death by his own race horse on board a Honolulu-bound liner, the detective discovers foul play and uncovers an international gambling ring.
Charlie Chan's investigation of a blackmail-induced suicide as a case of murder leads him into a world of magick and mysticism peopled with a stage magician, a phoney spiritualist, and a for-real mind reader.
Chan, in Paris for a reunion with friends from World War I, becomes involved in investigating the murder of a munitions manufacturer who was supplying arms to the enemy, even as the rising clouds of World War II force the city into nightly blackout status..
While investigating the theft of antiquities from an ancient tomb excavation , Charlie discovers that the body of the expedition's leader concealed inside the mummy's wrappings.
Charlie Chan is sought out by Pamela Gray, a desperate young socialite whose brother Paul awaits execution for the murder of a weapons inventor. Pamela is convinced of his innocence.
While Charlie is distracted with the birth of his first grandchild, son Jimmy impersonates his father in order to investigate a murder aboard a freighter in the harbor.
Charlie's visit to Paris, ostensibly a vacation, is really a mission to investigate a bond-forgery racket. But his agent, apache dancer Nardi is killed before she can tell him much. The case, complicated by a false murder accusation for banker's daughter Yvette, climaxes with a strange journey through the Paris sewers.
Mary Whitman has gone to Reno to obtain a divorce. While there she is arrested on suspicion of murdering a fellow guest at her hotel (which specializes in divorcers). There are many others at the hotel who wanted the victim out of the way. Charlie comes from his home in Honolulu to solve the murder.
When a prominent official is murdered at a banquet honoring Charle Chan, the detective and son Lee team up to expose an opium-smuggling ring.
Movie star Shelah Fane is seeing wealthy Alan Jaynes while filming in Honolulu, Hawaii, but won't marry him without consulting famed psychic Tarneverro first. Enter inspector Charlie Chan of the Honolulu Police, investigating the unsolved murder, three years earlier, of a Hollywood actor.
Returning from European exile where she avoided testifying against her criminal associates, a former singer with a tell-all diary is murdered to insure her silence.
Although Charlie and Lee are in Monaco for an art exhibit, they become caught up in a feud between rival financiers which involves the Chan's in a web of blackmail and murder.
On a cruise ship from Honolulu to San Francisco, the famous Chinese detective encounters four more murders while trying to figure out the murder of a Scotland Yard friend.