Father Brown, an unassuming and shabbily dressed priest, possesses an incredible ability to solve crimes and murders. Here he reveals the secret of his success. He discovers the culprit by imagining himself to be inside the mind of the criminal. This fourth collection of Father Brown stories contains the magnificent ‘The Chief Mourner of Marne’- a fascinating story with unexpected twists – about a duel and a case of mistaken identity.

Father Brown, full-time Catholic priest and part-time amateur detective, returns in this third collection of short stories by G. K. Chesterton. Unlike the first two collections, this time Father Brown is investigating alone; his sidekick, the former criminal Flambeau, is nowhere to be seen. Father Brown has to solve a murder (including his own!) in each story, and since several also appear to involve the supernatural, he has ample opportunity to elaborate on his thoughts concerning it.  

Father Brown returns in his fourth collection of stories, and his sidekick Flambeau makes a return as well, although only in the two framing stories at the beginning and end of the collection. In the intervening ten stories, Father Brown is alone, and investigating mysteries involving objects as varied as mirrors, literal goldfish (made out of gold), and a suit of armor. As always, his investigations also provide him an opportunity to expound on the nature of evil, the differences between a charlatan's representation of the supernatural and the real thing, and the opportunities for thieves and murderers to repent of their deeds.

THESE tales concern the doing of things recognized as impossible to do; impossible to believe; and, as the weary reader may well cry aloud, impossible to read about. Did the narrator merely say that they happened, without saying how they happened, they could easily be classified with the cow who jumped over the moon and the more introspective individual who jumped down his own throat. In short, they are all tall stories; and though tall stories may also be true stories, there is something in the very phrase appropriate to such a topsy-turvydom; for the logician will presumably class a tall story with a corpulent epigram or a long-legged essay. It is only proper that such impossible incidents should begin in the most prim and prosaic of all places, at the most prim and prosaic of all times, and apparently with the most prim and prosaic of all human beings.

A WILD, MAD,HILARIOUS AND PROFOUNDLY MOVING TALEIt is very difficult to classify THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY. It is possible to say that it is a gripping adventure story of murderous criminals and brilliant policemen; but it was to be expected that the author of the Father Brown stories should tell a detective story like no-one else. On this level, therefore, THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY succeeds superbly; if nothing else, it is a magnificent tour-de-force of suspense-writing. However, the reader will soon discover that it is much more than that. Carried along on the boisterous rush of the narrative by Chesterton’s wonderful high-spirited style, he will soon see that he is being carried into much deeper waters than he had planned on; and the totally unforeseeable denouement will prove for the modern reader, as it has for thousands of others since 1908 when the book was first published, an inevitable and moving experience, as the investigators finally discover who Sunday is.

Father Brown is on the case in these cherished British mysteries from acclaimed author G. K. Chesterton.

The Innocence of Father Brown   The Wisdom of Father Brown   The Incredulity of Father Brown   The Secret of Father Brown   The Scandal of Father Brown

Gabriel Syme is recruited at Scotland Yard to a secret anti-anarchist police corps. Lucian Gregory, an anarchistic poet, lives in the suburb of Saffron Park. Syme meets him at a party and they debate the meaning of poetry. Gregory argues revolt is the basis of poetry. Syme demurs, insisting the essence of poetry is not revolution, but rather law. He antagonizes Gregory by asserting the most poetical of human creations is the timetable for the London Underground.

The dreary succession of randomly selected Kings of England is broken up when Auberon Quin, who cares for nothing but a good joke, is chosen. To amuse himself, he institutes elaborate costumes for the provosts of the districts of London. All are bored by the King's antics except for one earnest young man who takes the cry for regional pride seriously – Adam Wayne, the eponymous Napoleon of Notting Hill.

There was a brief period during which Father Brown enjoyed, or rather did not enjoy, something like fame. He was a nine days’ wonder in the newspapers; he was even a common topic of controversy in the weekly reviews; his exploits were narrated eagerly and inaccurately in any number of clubs and drawing-rooms, especially in America. Incongruous and indeed incredible as it may seem to any one who knew him, his adventures as a detective were even made the subject of short stories appearing in magazines.

A librarian in a small town is asked to play the part of a medieval king. He not only takes his role seriously by thoroughly researching the Middle Ages, when the play is concluded, he refuses to take off the costume. He remains in character, much to the surprise of the other actors.

Two men appeared simultaneously at the two ends of a sort of passage running along the side of the Apollo Theatre in the Adelphi. The evening daylight in the streets was large and luminous, opalescent and empty. The passage was comparatively long and dark, so each man could see the other as a mere black silhouette at the other end. Nevertheless, each man knew the other, even in that inky outline; for they were both men of striking appearance and they hated each other.

A new tenant arrived at Beacon House, a London boarding establishment. He is identified by lodger Arthur Inglewood as an ex-schoolmate named Innocent Smith. During his first day in residence the eccentric Smith creates the High Court of Beacon; arranges to elope with Mary Gray, paid companion to heiress Rosamund Hunt; inspires Inglewood to declare his love for Diana Duke, the landlady’s niece; and prompts a reconciliation between jaded journalist Michael Moon and Rosamund.

Set in a future England where the Temperance movement has allowed a bizarre form of Progressive Islam to dominate the political and social life of the country. Because of this, alcohol sales to the poor are effectively prohibited, while the rich can get alcoholic drinks under a medical certificate.

Four Faultless Felons includes The Moderate Murderer, The Honest Quack, The Ecstatic Thief, and The Loyal Traitor. Chesterton's protagonist's faultless crimes include: murder, fraud, theft, and treason. They are motivated by good intentions of course, by altruism and virtues.

Professor Lucifer and a monk named Michael debate about rationalism and religion followed by even more heated interaction with an atheist Socialist named Turnbull. The symbolism of the title refers to a worldly and rationalist worldview represented by a ball or sphere, and the cross representing Christianity.

It would not be fair to record the adventures of Father Brown, without admitting that he was once involved in a grave scandal. There still are persons, perhaps even of his own community, who would say that there was a sort of blot upon his name. It happened in a picturesque Mexican road-house of rather loose repute, as appeared later; and to some it seemed that for once the priest had allowed a romantic streak in him, and his sympathy for human weakness, to lead him into loose and unorthodox action.

Flambeau, once the most famous criminal in France and later a very private detective in England, had long retired from both professions. Some say a career of crime had left him with too many scruples for a career of detection. Anyhow, after a life of romantic escapes and tricks of evasion, he had ended at what some might consider an appropriate address...

First published in 1914, The Wisdom of Father Brown is the second of G. K. Chesterton’s mystery anthologies featuring his eponymous Roman Catholic sleuth. These mysteries are the original source material for the current hit BBC TV show Father Brown starring Mark Williams. Chesterton’s priest-sleuth was loosely based on Father John O"Connor, a parish priest in Bradford, who was involved in Chesterton"s conversion to Catholicism in 1922. By bringing murder and mayhem into the genteel setting of a village parish, Chesterton pioneered the ‘cozy’ mystery genre which Agatha Christie and others would further develop in subsequent decades. There are twelve Father Brown mysteries in this collection: The Absence of Mr Glass. The Paradise of Thieves. The Duel of Dr Hirsch. The Man in the Passage. The Mistake of the Machine. The Head of Caesar. The Purple Wig. The Perishing of the Pendragons. The God of the Gongs. The Salad of Colonel Cray. The Strange Crime of John Boulnois. The Fairy Tale of Father Brown.

THE consulting-rooms of Dr Orion Hood, the eminent criminologist and specialist in certain moral disorders, lay along the sea-front at Scarborough, in a series of very large and well-lighted french windows, which showed the North Sea like one endless outer wall of blue-green marble. In such a place the sea had something of the monotony of a blue-green dado: for the chambers themselves were ruled throughout by a terrible tidiness not unlike the terrible tidiness of the sea. It must not be supposed that Dr Hood’s apartments excluded luxury, or even poetry. These things were there, in their place; but one felt that they were never allowed out of their place. Luxury was there: there stood upon a special table eight or ten boxes of the best cigars; but they were built upon a plan so that the strongest were always nearest the wall and the mildest nearest the window. A tantalus containing three kinds of spirit, all of a liqueur excellence, stood always on this table of luxury; but the fanciful have asserted that the whisky, brandy, and rum seemed always to stand at the same level. Poetry was there: the left-hand corner of the room was lined with as complete a set of English classics as the right hand could show of English and foreign physiologists. But if one took a volume of Chaucer or Shelley from that rank, its absence irritated the mind like a gap in a man’s front teeth. One could not say the books were never read; probably they were, but there was a sense of their being chained to their places, like the Bibles in the old churches. Dr Hood treated his private book-shelf as if it were a public library. And if this strict scientific intangibility steeped even the shelves laden with lyrics and ballads and the tables laden with drink and tobacco, it goes without saying that yet more of such heathen holiness protected the other shelves that held the specialist’s library, and the other tables that sustained the frail and even fairylike instruments of chemistry or mechanics. Dr Hood paced the length of his string of apartments, bounded—as the boys’ geographies say—on the east by the North Sea and on the west by the serried ranks of his sociological and criminologist library. He was clad in an artist’s velvet, but with none of an artist’s negligence; his hair was heavily shot with grey, but growing thick and healthy; his face was lean, but sanguine and expectant. Everything about him and his room indicated something at once rigid and restless, like that great northern sea by which (on pure principles of hygiene) he had built his home.

The Complete Father Brown Mysteries includes 24 stories featuring G. K. Chesterton’s eponymous Roman Catholic sleuth. These mysteries are the original source material for the current hit BBC TV show Father Brown starring Mark Williams. Chesterton’s priest-sleuth was loosely based on Father John O"Connor, a parish priest in Bradford, who was involved in Chesterton"s conversion to Catholicism in 1922. By bringing murder and mayhem into the genteel setting of a village parish, Chesterton pioneered the ‘cozy’ mystery genre which Agatha Christie and others would further develop in subsequent decades.

First published in 1911, The Innocence of Father Brown is the first of G. K. Chesterton’s mystery anthologies featuring his eponymous Roman Catholic sleuth. These mysteries are the original source material for the current hit BBC TV show Father Brown starring Mark Williams. Chesterton’s priest-sleuth was loosely based on Father John O"Connor, a parish priest in Bradford, who was involved in Chesterton"s conversion to Catholicism in 1922. By bringing murder and mayhem into the genteel setting of a village parish, Chesterton pioneered the ‘cozy’ mystery genre which Agatha Christie and others would further develop in subsequent decades. There are twelve Father Brown mysteries in this collection: The Blue Cross. The Secret Garden. The Queer Feet. The Flying Stars. The Invisible Man. The Honour of Israel Gow. The Wrong Shape. The Sins of Prince Saradine. The Hammer of God. The Eye of Apollo. The Sign of the Broken Sword. The Three Tools of Death.

The Complete Father Brown Mysteries includes 24 mysteries featuring G. K. Chesterton"s eponymous Roman Catholic sleuth.

The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare is about an eccentric Scotland Yard detective named Syme who infiltrates a dangerous underworld anarchist group in London with the help of a poet he befriends. The taut adventure story that ensues is a unique blend of espionage and mystery - told in that inimitable Chesterton wit. Curl up with this classic British mystery from G. K. Chesterton, author of The Father Brown Mysteries.