The Father Brown Stories

Father Brown solves some excellent mysteries, which follow the cardinal (no pun intended) rule of providing the reader with enough of a clue to work out the solution without being obvious. At the same time, he clearly and beautifully articulates the importance of humility (which can do wonders for one's powers of observation) the distinction between good and evil, and forgiving sins without excusing them.

Part of the pleasure of G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown stories is always waiting for his mild-mannered detective hero to move in from the margins of each mystery story and assume center stage halfway through when the central crisis becomes apparent. Unlike Sherlock Holmes, Father Brown never dominates the frame tales and so his inevitable ascendancy (after having been neglected by the other characters as ineffective and uninteresting)... Read Full Review

A friend of mine recently bought this omnibus volume as a gift for a lover of detective fiction. For that it's probably perfect. Having said that, I rather prefer the separate paperbacks of Father Brown's cases which consist of, I think, The Innocence, Incredulity, Wisdom, Secret and Scandal of Father Brown. Why? Smaller to carry around and pass on to the next hungry reader. New readers can sample a few stories to see if... Read Full Review

This book compiles some short detective stories, with an unlikely protagonist, a priest. Father Brown is a rather quiet main character, unpretentious but remarkably assured. He uses logic in order to solve his cases, and he makes abundant use of good judgment and sound sense. Father Brown has an unique "worldly shrewdness", that probably stems from the fact that he spends many hours each day listening to the sins of other... Read Full Review

The mystery story is exemplified by the Sherlock Holmes stories. Those who haven't read them will probably know much about them from the way they have (justly) been added to the public imagination. So a good way of describing the Father Brown stories is to compare the two, as the images of Holmes are probably known to all.Holmes is a private detective. As such, his main objective is to solve the crime. Father Brown is (obviously)... Read Full Review