Charlie Chan's Reno Riddle: A Charlie Chan Mystery

By Antonios Valamontes

A murder in Reno. A room filled with clues. A circle of suspects in which nearly everyone has something to hide.

When Charlie Chan receives an urgent request connected to businessman Richard Kensington, he leaves Honolulu for Reno with Jimmy Chan and Birmingham Brown. By the time they arrive, Kensington is dead-and Suite 403 has become the center of a mystery involving gambling debts, secret meetings, coded messages, a private society known as the Serpent's Dagger, and evidence that refuses to point in only one direction.

Victor Malone, a volatile high-stakes gambler, has an obvious motive. Casino owner Marcus Vale knows more than he admits. A frightened hotel employee changes his story. And Arthur Mercer, Kensington's longtime business associate, appears determined to help Charlie uncover the truth.

But Charlie Chan knows that the most dangerous clue is often the one that seems too small to matter.

As Jimmy's camera preserves details others overlook and Birmingham follows leads through Reno's casinos, warehouses, and back streets, Charlie quietly reconstructs the final hours of Kensington's life. The investigation leads from the Silver Horseshoe Casino to Warehouse Twelve and a secluded cabin near Washoe Lake before returning to the room where the mystery began.

This 2026 Collector's Continuity Revision expands and restructures the original 2023 release as a mystery deliberately written in the tradition of the classic Charlie Chan screen adventures: brisk scene changes, visual clues, colorful suspects, red herrings, ensemble detective work, and a final gathering in which Charlie reveals how every overlooked detail fits together.

The paperback also includes an Author's Note on the screen-continuity approach, a historical archive of Charlie Chan on film and television, and a concise film-by-film chronology identifying the actors who portrayed Charlie Chan and the place of each production within the screen tradition.

Charlie Chan's Reno Riddle is both a new mystery and a tribute to more than a century of Charlie Chan detective storytelling.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0C9244PVL
• ISBN13: 9798399567594
• Release Date: June 2023
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 102 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 5.3" x 8.0"