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The Innocence of Father Brown

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I read this on the recommendation of my 14 year old grandson who claims Chesterton is the best mystery writer EVER! My grandson just might be right. Clearly Chesterton is a highly intelligent story-crafter. This collection of short stories about Father Brown kept me awake and alert and ALWAYS surprised regarding the outcome. There was nothing formulaic or predictable in these stories. Father Brown is delightful in a Columbo fashion (perhaps the TV detective was modeled after him), and his sleuthing is remarkably unique. I loved Chesterton's use of language too. His sentences are long and luscious and his vocabulary makes reading a delicious experience. I must say, I'm quite happy to know that a 14 year old finds Chesterton so exceptional.

G. K. Chesterton had a writing ability that is nothing short of extraordinary. He could craft landscapes, settings, and locations with vivid textures, and possessed a cunning knack that made the ordinary seem thoroughly outlandish and the peculiar rather tame. This collection of short mysteries aptly shows off his skill as a writer; whereas most authors would use an entire novel to build tension, cultivate atmosphere, and weave a complex mystery, Chesterton could do all that in a few brief pages - and at a much higher level of quality too! Reading this book is like reading twelve beautifully crafted novels in one, such is the quality.

I won't spoil the stories for you; reading this book is a rewarding journey for the imagination, meeting many characters fantastic in their normalcy or surprisingly believable and realistic in their peculiarity, visiting locations stunningly brought to life with a writing skill that is second to none, and delving into mysterious events that are often confusing, complex, and entertaining for the brain. Don't pick this book up if you want some pedestrian tales; pick it up if you want first-class storytelling that will keep you both guessing and thinking.

The 12 stories herein can of course be found in THE COMPLETE FATHER BROWN, and THE ANNOTATED INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN. This is the first Brown collection, which introduces not only Father Brown himself but Flambeau, the daring thief. Father Brown worked on Flambeau during their early confrontations, and eventually persuaded him to give up his life of crime. He became Father Brown's friend and sometime sidekick, and appears in three-quarters of the stories herein, in one capacity or another.

"The Blue Cross" - The great detective Valentin knows that Flambeau the thief has selected a little English priest as his target, since the priest has been entrusted with a valuable cross set with sapphires. But when Valentin begins tracking the priest across the city, a very odd pattern of incidents begins to emerge.

"The Secret Garden" - Father Brown is a dinner guest in Valentin's home.

"The Queer Feet" - 'The Twelve True Fishermen', meeting for their annual fish dinner at a small, exclusive restaurant, saw the usual count of waiters - but one had died hours before! Father Brown (called in earlier for the waiter's dying confession and last rites) unravels a spectacular caper.

"The Flying Stars" - Flambeau's last crime (as noted in the 1st paragraph of the story), cited as an example of his love of artistically matching settings with crimes. His confrontation with Father Brown resonates nicely with the preceding story's metaphor of Brown having him on a line like a fish.

"The Invisible Man" - Locked-room mystery. The inventor was found murdered in his flat, but witnesses say that nobody could have gone past them without being seen.

"The Honour of Israel Gow" - This story actually takes place *after* "The Wrong Shape". The Earl of Glengyle was a hermit - and after finding some very odd circumstances in the Earl's home after his death, Flambeau and Father Brown begin to fear that Satanism is involved.

"The Wrong Shape" - The writer was a bad husband and an unpleasant man, and the beautifully penned suicide note seemed almost too good to be true.

"The Sins of Prince Saradine" - Flambeau takes Father Brown along to collect on the prince's invitation, sent to him during his criminal career, to visit if he were to become respectable, since he greatly admired Flambeau's stunt of once arranging for one policeman to arrest another, when both were looking for *him*.

"The Hammer of God" - The last two Bohuns are the curate, who pursues the beauty of his church, and the colonel, who chases women. But if he managed to catch the blacksmith's wife, it may well have been the death of him.

"The Eye of Apollo" - Locked-room mystery. Father Brown came to visit Flambeau, who has taken an office in a new building. Pauline Stacey, a rich idealist in a neighbouring office, fell down the empty elevator shaft that same day - when nobody else, apparently, was in the building.

"The Sign of the Broken Sword" - Why has Father Brown taken Flambeau to every monument to the memory of the great general, finally ending here at his grave? "Where does a wise man hide a leaf? In a forest." Someone, unfortunately, once took that saying to heart.

"The Three Tools of Death" - With three weapons visible on the scene, why did the victim die by a fall from a window?

In recent weeks I have suffered from the rail conditions in South East England. I might have gone mad if not for this book (and a few others, of course). Each story was like getting involved in a cryptic crossword. The stories are weird, wonderful, sometimes quite horrific but always enthralling, and they keep you guessing till the end.

I had really enjoyed 'The Club of Queer Trades', and found 'Father Brown' had the same typically Chesterton style.

Father Brown reveals the dark side of human nature and revels in the unusual and fantastic. I only wish there were more stories.

Does anyone else write like this?

What an absolutely delightful set of stories! Each is gem of superb writing that is clever and perceptive. G.K. Chesterton serves up short detective stories, each of which is solved by the insightful intuition and logic of his Catholic priest hero, Father Brown. The situations Brown finds himself also illuminate 19th-century British class distinctions and pre-occupations. The characters are well drawn and intriguing. The 12 Fishermen is an aristocratic men's club with no apparent purpose other than to meet yearly in an exclusive restaurant. Inspector Valentin, the "greatest detective in the world," is an avowed atheist who is repelled by Brown's religiosity and irritated by his cleverness. Flambeau the exquisite thief starts out as a fairy-like phantom figure before becoming Brown's confidante. The murders and killings in the book are varied and fantastic -- everything from beheadings to duels to suicides are trotted out for us to decipher. But though Chesterton lays out his clues in the open, no case has an obvious solution, and all involve twists of identity. Red herrings abound, mostly of the reader's own conjuring. It's a wonder to read how the simple priest is able to see clearly where others see not at all.

Chesterton's evident humanity and views on life fairly leap off the page. His heros and villains are of the upper classes and include an odd menagerie of soldiers, doctors, poets, socialists and aristocrats. Chesterton sympathizes (to a point) with the socialist young, the romantic and even the repentant ne'er-do-well. He finds amusement at those who dabble in foreign religions. But he is wary of atheism, the occult and the anti-clericalism. Yet whatever his feelings, he gives to each of his characters the Christian opportunity to change and the very human reluctance to do so.

Worth reading or listening to over and over to appreciate GK's craft!

This collection is comprised of 12 mysteries featuring Father Brown, a Roman Catholic priest who uses his knowledge of human nature and his intellect to solve the mysteries that seem to pop up around him. At times the solutions to the cases seem a bit fantasic and a little bit out-of-the-blue. However, all the solutions are logical and make sense when you think about them.

Furthermore, Chesterton's writting is brilliantly descriptive and really helps the the reader visualize the scene. As one of the other reviewers said Chesterton's writing ability really is extraordinary.

My personal favorite in the collection was "The Sign of the Broken Sword."

I would recommend this collection to any fan of mysteries and especially those who enjoy Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie's Poirot.

Father Brown is first introduced to readers as a kindly, clumsy little priest who prattles naively about the valuables he's toting, and keeps dropping his umbrella.

But appearances, G.K. Chesterton reminds us, are deceptive. "The Innocence of Father Brown" is the first collection of stories about the kindly, eccentric detective who has an uncanny cleverness that nobody guesses. Chesterton wraps each story in his warm, sometimes entrancing writing and a very odd assortment of crimes.

The first story opens with French detective Valentin on the hunt for the great thief Flambeau, and along the way encounters a little priest who is telling people about his "silver with blue stones." Turns out that the little priest is the target of Flambeau's crime, and the priceless sapphire cross he's carrying is about to be stolen -- but Valentin discovers that Father Brown is a lot cleverer than he seems.

In the stories that follow, Father Brown is involved in a series of strange crimes -- a cold-blooded beheading from religious bigotry, "a cheery cosy English middle-class crime" for Christmas, an Italian prince's invitation ends with revenge, a mysterious fall, a murderer in the open that nobody sees, precious gems, headless skeletons, and a suicide note that reads: "I die by my own hand; yet I die murdered!"

Chesterton's mysteries are often ignored next to Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle, which is odd when you consider his uncanny knack for making mysteries that are simple, yet incredibly hard to figure out. And each mystery is accompanied by little insights into human nature -- such as the one man whom you could see going to a crime scene, but wouldn't notice.

The mysteries are usually written very casually and a little humorously, but with an oblique wall of clues that don't make sense until Father Brown reveals the motives. And Chesterton's crowning achievement is a writing style is absolutely exquisite ("Between the silver ribbon of morning and the green glittering ribbon of sea"), something that not many mysteries have.

Three characters are really important here: little gnomish Father Brown, whose innocuous appearance hides a shrewd knowledge of crime and evil. There's Flambeau, a master thief who is impressed by Brown's intelligence and understanding, and the rabidly bigoted French detective Valentin, whose dislike of Brown takes an unexpected turn early in the book.

"The Innocence of Father Brown" is a solid little collection of Chesterton's detective stories, starring one of the least likely detectives you could pick. Definitely a good read for mystery buffs.

Chesterton's Father Brown has always been one of my favorite amateur sleuths. Less about the trail of clues and re herrings than about the Father's knowledge of human nature--knowledge learned from his many years of experience--each of the stories has an understated but evident 'moral lesson' to impart.

For those who like their mysteries without the lecture, let me add that Father Brown is an engaging, likable creature in himself and the stories are well-written and a pleasure to read.

Take Sherlock Holmes, lower his intelligence by half (leaving him as still smarter than average) and turn him into a bland (but observant) Roman Catholic priest who happens to solve a lot of mysteries and you get Father Brown. Some of the mysteries he solves are complex, and the third person narration is occasionally witty (even sarcastic). However, the mild-mannered Father Brown is, frankly, a bit boring. I would much rather read about the arrogant Sherlock Holmes or Dupin any day. The author's frequent pot-shots at Protestants/Protestantism are annoying too...some are witty but mostly they just come off as mean-spirited.

A lovely collection indeed!

Every time I read Chesterton's non-fiction I come away thinking of him as an argumentative, opinionated, moralistic old fart in love with the sound of his own voice. Ah, but when I read his fiction I encounter a man with a lovely, playful mind that sees the world around it as perhaps not one of us in a billion ever could.

These early Father Brown stories are pearls amid a sea of finest wine, as influential in days past as they are enjoyable to read today. (Did you know Agatha Christie named Hercule Poirot in tribute to a character found in Father Brown?) Few characters in history are as original as Father Brown, the most unassuming yet cerebral of men who embodies deceptive simplicity and humility alongside perspicacity and insight. Not yet as (sigh) heavily dogmatic as a few of Chesterton's later Father Brown mysteries became, the stories in The Innocence are fast as quicksilver, delightfully unique, and a lot of fun. My favorite is The Honour of Israel Gow, set in and around a decaying manor house in a dark Scottish countryside, where at first it seems Satanic evil is afoot but which turns out to be something quite admirably different: and who but G.K. Chesterton would or could have ended a story as he does this one?

If you take the time to read these Father Brown tales, I think you'll come to agree there is nothing else exactly like them not just in the genre of mysteries, but in the entire canon of the English language!