Father Brown

First published in 1911, The Innocence of Father Brown contains stories involving one of the greatest characters in the history of detective fiction, Father Brown. He is a Roman Catholic priest, and has an uncanny insight to human evil. Rather than the large serial villains in stories such as Sherlock Holmes, the mysteries Father Brown solved were more local murders by small town crooks, narrowing the suspect list down to those in the area of the crime. The cozy mystery style that The Innocence of Father Brown conveys sparked a revolution at the time, bringing it to the forefront of the detective fiction genre.

The second volume of stories featuring the most unlikely detective in literature - now the basis for a major BBC TV adaptation starring Mark Williams. The ingenious amateur detective Father Brown is put to the test again in this second collection of stories, which sees him solve cases featuring bandits, traitors, voodoo and murder, wrong-footing his opponents at every turn with his characteristic blend of mischievous humour and uncanny understanding of human foibles.

If you were to meet a mild, hard-working little priest, named Father Brown, and were to ask him what he thought was the most singular luck of his life, he would probably reply that upon the whole his best stroke was at the Vernon Hotel, where he had averted a crime and, perhaps, saved a soul, merely by listening to a few footsteps in a passage.

"My last crime was a Christmas crime, a cheery, cosy, English middle-class crime; a crime of Charles Dickens. I did it in a good old middle-class house, a house with a crescent of carriage drive, a house with a stable by the side of it, a house with the name on the two outer gates, a house with a monkey tree. Enough, you know the species." How does Father Brown solve the theft of three gorgeous, large diamonds by a boastful thief?

Aristide Valentin, Paris chief of police, has decided to stage a grand dinner party at his estate. The estate has only one entrance with a garden is protected by a high wall; there is no entering or leaving, except by the main entrance which is guarded by Valentin's steadfast servant. However, a murder most foul, a decapitation occurs, and it will be up to Father Brown to use all his wits to solve this heinous murder.

Aristide Valentin, head of the Paris Police, is on the trail of the ingenious criminal and master of disguise, Flambeau. Valentin suspects that Flambeau is going to London steal precious religious articles. While traveling to London, Valentin overhears Father Brown tell a lady that he is carrying the "Blue Cross," a sterling silver cross covered in precious blue stones. Valentin warns Father Brown that it is dangerous to tell anyone that he is carrying an object of immense value. Valentin decides to tail Father Brown but loses him and there begins a desperate chase to avert a terrible crime.

Will Father Brown discover who killed the well-to-do ne'er-do-well? It appears as though he was stricken with the hammer of God. Is that a thing? G.K. Chesterton is most notable for his creation of Father Brown. This unlooked for, and often unwelcome, detective is actually not a detective. But rather, an individual self-trained to think as criminals think, for he has heard so many of their confessions. He knows how their minds work, and can piece together many things that others cannot. This story is from the first collection of Father Brown Stories, The Innocence of Father Brown.