This provocative first "biography" of fictional detective Charlie Chan presents American history through the unique filter of a racially and culturally stereotyped Hollywood icon, whose roots extend to a real-life detective who wielded a bullwhip in territorial Hawaii. Yunte Huang ingeniously resurrects the "honorable detective" from the graveyard of rejected postmodern symbols, where all stereotypes have been relegated as demeaning and derogatory, and reclaims him as the embodiment of America's rich cultural diversity.

Described as a 'heady mixture of scholarship, essay and memoir' by the Washington Post, this book was shortlisted for the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography and a 2011 Edgar Award.