Charlie Chan in The Pawns of Death

Charlie Chan in The Pawns of Death by Bill Pronzini and Jeffrey M. Wallmann

Charlie Chan is a fictional Chinese American detective based in Honolulu created by author Earl Derr Biggers, who wrote six novels featuring Chan between 1925 and 1932. Biggers loosely based Chan on Honolulu detective Chang Apana. The character was adopted by Hollywood which produced over 3 dozen Charlie Chan movies from 1926 through the 1940s. In the 1970s Charlie Chan Mystery Magazine came into existence to publish the Charlie Chan stories of Bill Pronzini and Jeffrey M. Wallmann who were writing them under the pseudonym Robert Hart Davis. This is one of the longer stories from issue #4 of this publication, issues in August 1974, and now available on its own in print since 2002.
In this story Charlie Chan is on vacation and visiting the Transcontinental Chess Tournament in Paris as the guest of his friend Paris police Prefect Claude DeBevre. The tournament is pitting the British chess champion Roger Mountbatten against a young American challenger Grant Powell. Tensions are high between the two opponents and their respective backers Clive Kettridge and Raymond Balfour, as they all settle into the same floor of the Hotel Frontenac. When Balfour is found murdered in his bed in a room locked from the inside, Debevre asks for Chan's help in solving the mystery before the tournament is ruined.
I don't recommend this book to anyone except hard core fans of Charlie Chan. If you are interested in the famous detective, I recommend starting with one of Biggers' six novels. This is typical mystery magazine fare, light detective fiction written to amuse, and in that it succeeds. The authors of this story rely on the reader having a familiarity with the character and do minimal character development in the text.