Merely Mystery Reading Challenge - The Ransom of Red Chief by O. Henry

As you may have guessed, I've been trying to read different types of mysteries. And after searching for a long time, I finally found a caper mystery - The Ransom of Red Chief, a short story by O. Henry.

A caper mystery, if you don't know, is a mystery that features the criminals as the main story. In this story, the main characters are the two criminals Bill and Sam, who appear tough, but have their weak spot. Although in reality, I think that would be anyone's weak spot.

In this story, our two protagonists/criminals are trying to raise money to commit another crime. They do this by kidnapping the son of a prominent citizen in a small town. However, their victim proves to be more they can handle. In fact, they soon realise that most people do not want their little victime back, they're much happier with the brat out of the way.


This short story is really short. According to Readability, it takes about 16 minutes to read. It took me about five minutes to read though. Well, I suppose that if you're looking for a short but entertaining story to read, you should definitely give this a go. I do wish that this was a full length novel, but it would be way too cruel to Bill and Sam.