I recently saw a news story about the Baldpate Inn in Colorado on the CBS Morning Show. The inn was interesting in that guests who go there usually leave the inn a key and the inn has the largest collection of keys in the world. Turns out the Inn was named after a fictional Inn in Biggers' novel Seven Keys to Baldpate. So I was intrigued and decided to read an online copy of the novel.
This was a typical mystery/romance novel that was published in 1913 and it definitely showed its age. Biggers later went on to fame with his Charlie Chan series but this novel was published over 10 years prior to the first Chan. The story was about a writer of light fiction who wants to get away and write a great novel of literary quality. So he is given a key to the Baldpate Inn which is closed for the winter. When he arrives, the caretaker lets him in to a cold dark mausoleum-like place (shades of The Shining?) with no heat or running water. He decides to make due solely for the quietude. But then other people start showing up who also had a key to the inn. One of these is a young lady he had met at the train station who he immediately falls in love with. But why are all the others there - seven keys in all?! Well, they all seem to be after a mysterious package that turns out to contain $200,000 in thousand dollar bills! (That would be over $5 million in today's dollars). But why is the money there and who does it belong to? This does eventually get resolved in typical popular fiction style from the early 20th century. And does our hero get the girl? Well what do you think?
Overall, a kind of fun read. It must have been well-liked in its time because several movie versions of it were made as well as a play by George M. Cohan. I have a couple of Biggers' Charlie Chan novels that I should also read.
This was a typical mystery/romance novel that was published in 1913 and it definitely showed its age. Biggers later went on to fame with his Charlie Chan series but this novel was published over 10 years prior to the first Chan. The story was about a writer of light fiction who wants to get away and write a great novel of literary quality. So he is given a key to the Baldpate Inn which is closed for the winter. When he arrives, the caretaker lets him in to a cold dark mausoleum-like place (shades of The Shining?) with no heat or running water. He decides to make due solely for the quietude. But then other people start showing up who also had a key to the inn. One of these is a young lady he had met at the train station who he immediately falls in love with. But why are all the others there - seven keys in all?! Well, they all seem to be after a mysterious package that turns out to contain $200,000 in thousand dollar bills! (That would be over $5 million in today's dollars). But why is the money there and who does it belong to? This does eventually get resolved in typical popular fiction style from the early 20th century. And does our hero get the girl? Well what do you think?
Overall, a kind of fun read. It must have been well-liked in its time because several movie versions of it were made as well as a play by George M. Cohan. I have a couple of Biggers' Charlie Chan novels that I should also read.
