The Purloined Letter: A "Simple" Mystery
The story of the purloined letter is pretty simple. The government is trying to find a letter that a man has stolen, and the detective realizes that it isn't in his house at all, but at his work station where letters are usually found. I like the message that you need to think like the criminal does. Since people are of different intelligence, it makes sense that they would make unique decisions that seem too simple at first glance. However, I find it odd that the Prefect didn't even check his office and only searched his domicile. I get that he thought it needed to be on hand, so it was at his house, but that would literally be the second place I would check. There's hiding in plain sight, and then there's laziness.
Well, I agree the story is pretty simple by the readers' standard nowadays, but I think we should also keep in mind that Poe basically initiated the entire detective genre with the Dupin series. I personally like his idea of "hiding in plain sight" and the creative justification he gives by talking about the strategy of making a map puzzle because so many detective stories after him also adopt the same logic.
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