Richard's Reviews > The Kidnapping

Extremely Short Story!
This is a 12-page short story. A man comes into Scotland Yard at night insisting to meet with an inspector. He refuses to provide any information to the desk sergeant, and barges into the office where he runs into Inspector Rutledge, who has night duty. He has been mugged, and his daughter has been kidnapped. The perpetrators were the cab driver and two accomplices, who have beaten and kicked the victim before forcing his daughter into the cab and driving away.

He tells Rutledge how he and his daughter had been guests of the Lowery family for dinner, where another guest, Miss Abernathy, regaled everybody with stories of her growing up in Kenya, Africa. After entering the victim's apartment and seeing how it had been ransacked, Rutledge and the victim visit the Lowery home and speak with the hosts. They are told about the other guests and where they are staying. Rutledge decides to visit Miss Abernathy at her hotel room, so he and the victim travel there and solve the case within minutes.

The story is well-written, but short at only twelve pages. It is more a means for an excerpt from the authors' next novel to be presented to readers in the hope of stimulating more sales, apparently. Still, I enjoyed it and award four stars. I was going to read the next novel, anyway.