A series of stories which each explore some individual aspect of life in a paralytically sleepy Central American town while each advancing some aspect of the larger plot and relating back one to another in a complex structure which slowly explicates its own background even as it painstakingly erects a town which is one of the most detailed literary creations of the period.

O. Henry was the pen name of American writer William Sydney Porter. O. Henry short stories are known for wit, wordplay, warm characterization and clever twist endings.