The Complete Father Brown Mysteries (Unabridged)

These aren't classics for nothing but be warned if you have a low tolerance for bees in authors' bonnets - Chesterton has an agressive one about his dedicated Catholicism and it can wear a little thin due to sheer repetition. Most of these stories have at least one pointed exchange about it and his biting satires of groups with different ideas don't exactly come off as even-handed. That said, i just read these stories two or three at a time so i don't miss out on these ingenious mysteries.

I have read Father Brown stories before, but never in the proper order. This collection provides back stories, details, developments, that make the stories much more understandable and enjoyable. I now know how he and Flambeau came to be friends, what happened with the intrepid French detective, how Father Brown showed up in the most unexpected places, and how the combination of reasoning and evidence plays out in these stories. Chesterton's writing is spot-on, and occasionally it's dazzling.

It's just that I've never read G.K. Chesterton before, and well, there are better mystery writers. He can be a bit overdramatic, relying too much on the hero's sensitivity and intuition, often with no logical reasons for his conclusions.

Very enjoyable reading. Liked the short length of each story. Able to read a complete story at one setting. Found myself trying to guess the culprit/killer while reading. Would purchase more of similar books.

Unique. Every mystery is solved by the unassuming priest by using common sense and thinking outside the box. And this almost a century before this term (and idea) was talked about. Brilliant if you like old-fashioned....

It was an interesting and fun read. I occasionally read a deep and serious book, but for relaxation I read easy, light mysteries that I can read in a few hours. This was a book that I throughly enjoyed. Even though the book was $.99, it read like an expensive best seller.

GOOD SHORT STORIES WITH PHILOSOPHICAL INSIGHTS.
CHARACTERS SEEMED VERY ALIVE. I HAD SEEN AND HEARD ABOUT
THIS SERIES, BUT IT WAS THE 1950'S ALEC GUINESS "THE DETECTIVE" FILM
THATGOT ME TO RESEARCH THE SOURCE OF THE MOVIE

Stories are short,quick reads and delightful. They remind me of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries. I could read a story and then put the Kindle down and return to the book for another quick read at my leisure.

Stories are short,quick reads and delightful. They remind me of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries. I could read a story and then put the Kindle down and return to the book for another quick read at my leisure.

It's obvious that crime stories are rarely credible. But they have to be intrinsically credible. Father Brown knows things which he cannot possibly know. His predictions - which always turn out to be true - are mostly just too implausible.

This book, I thought would be interesting judging from the old hit series "Father Dowling". However, I found more interesting books so I turned it back in without reading it. I cannot judge this book.

If you are a fan of the tv show do not read this book. Very tedious, took me months to plow through it. Stories are stretched and the solutions are a little hard to take. Father Brown comes across as not very likeable or believable. Save some time and aggravation and read something else.

I am actually a very well educated fan of British literature, so it pains me to admit that I kept drifting off trying to read these. I regret to say that they are just incredibly boring despite Chesterton's undisputed ability to write. I have to go against me usual preferences here and say for entertainment value you'd do best just to stick to the TV series.

If you are a fan of the tv show do not read this book. Very tedious, took me months to plow through it. Stories are stretched and the solutions are a little hard to take. Father Brown comes across as not very likeable or believable. Save some time and aggravation and read something else.

I am actually a very well educated fan of British literature, so it pains me to admit that I kept drifting off trying to read these. I regret to say that they are just incredibly boring despite Chesterton's undisputed ability to write. I have to go against me usual preferences here and say for entertainment value you'd do best just to stick to the TV series.

I bought this because we love the Father Brown TV Series show on BBC. The TV show writers are bound and leaps above G.K. Chesterton!
The book was slow and bogged you down with boring details and descriptions, then **POW** murderer found- The End. This Father Brown was a bumbling idiot who just happened to be there. After reading about 4 stories I quit. Hubby read only two. I deleted the book off my Kindle.
My advice- watch the shows forget the book.

I cannot read this on the Kindle app on my iPad. All quotation marks are rendered in something that looks like gobbledegook, and this is so distracting that it is impossible to enjoy reading the text.

Great stuff. Interesting characters (although too many have yellow faces) and wonderful plots. Clever interpretations of facts that seem to point to an obvious conclusion but don't or which seem to have no connection but do. Especially so given the time in which it was written. Absolutely nothing like the pablum BBC series, although in at least one show the plot was borrowed from a short story. Truly a Classic "Detective" character that I overlooked despite avidly reading Detective novels over my many years.

This relates to the character, not to this Kindle edition.

The Complete Father Brown

This is the complete collection of Gilbert Keith Chesterton's "Father Brown" detective stories. Arthur Conan Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes" specialized in the collection and analysis of evidence, the new science of trace evidence in the late 19th century. "Holmes" used deductive reasoning from minute clues to solve a crime. "Brown" used the method of observation of people and inductive reasoning to solve a crime. "Brown" tries to think as the criminal would and solves crimes that way. If you can discover the motive then you can discover the perpetrator. It works very good in fiction. This technique can be misused today to create false confessions by psychological manipulation.

Most of these stories are quite short as if written for a magazine. You get a description of events as seen by other people, then a solution follows, with an explanation. The clues are subtle and based on people's actions, the ending surprising. Most written stories don't reveal the ending until the last pages or chapters. In films you often know who did it, the suspense arises as to how they will get caught. But there are variations on these plots. These stories are always entertaining and amusing, even if some details are now as extinct as a horse and buggy, or may seem improbable. There are fifty-one stories.

"The Innocence of Father Brown" (1911) has twelve stories.
The Blue Cross; The Secret Garden; The Queer Feet; The Flying Stars;
The Invisible Man; The Honor 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 Wisdom of Father Brown" (1913) has twelve stories.
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 Punishing of Pendragon;
The God of the Gong; The Salad of Colonel Cray; The Strange Crime of John Boulnois; The Fiery Tale of Father Brown.

"The Incredulity of Father Brown" (1923) has eight stories.
The Resurrection of Father Brown; The Arrow of Heaven; The Oracle of the Dog;
The Miracle of Moon Crescent; The Curse of the Golden Cross; The Dagger with Wings;
The Doom of the Darnaways; The Ghost of Gideon Wise.

"The Secret of Father Brown" (1927) has ten stories.
The Secret of Father Brown; The Mirror of the Magistrate; The Man with Two Beards;
The Song of the Flying Fish; The Actor and the Alibi; The Vanishing of Vaudrey;
The Worst Crime in the World; The Red Moon of Meru; The Chief Mourner of Marne;
The Secret of Flambeau.

"The Scandal of Father Brown" (1935) has nine stories.
The Scandal of Father Brown; The Quick One; The Blast of the Book;
The Green Man; The Pursuit of Mr. Blue; The Crime of the Communist;
The Point of a Pin; The Insoluble Problem; The Vampire of the Village.

In my humble, atheistic opinion, G.K. Chesterton is the single greatest writer of mystery stories. At first I was skeptical. Did I really want fancy-schmacy writing in a mystery? It took me awhile to get used to his poetic, incredibly atmospheric and nearly surreal style. But certainly, the grace and moodiness of his writing makes these stories highly re-readable. He's also an amazingly witty writer. There are enough jokes in Chesterton to qualify him as a comic novelist. Although Gore Vidal dismissed him as a "Christian writer", Chesterton echoed Vidal's wisdom when he wrote something to the effect of, "The opposite of funny isn't serious. The opposite of funny is not funny."

Yes, many of the stories are improbable -- they are intentionally dream-like. And yes, they are preachy -- but in the most wonderful way imaginable -- wise and insightful. And even when he is wrong, Chesterton is fun to read.

If you read enough of him you will find he was bigoted against black, Jews and gays. Really disturbing -- but perhaps Christian forgiveness is called for as we remember Chesterton for the genius he was, warts and all.

Chesterton is brilliant, and his work in the public domain deserves better. This edition is poorly formatted. Every line starts on the far left without indents, breaks or separate paragraphs. The illustrations are poorly-reproduced, public domain images unrelated to the story. While it declares itself to be the complete Father Brown, it is not. Buy an edition from a recognized publisher. This edition is a ripoff.

Boy, is it a pleasure to look back on my college days and know that I don't have to wade through works by Plato and Thomas Aquinas and Kant anymore. You could sweat over that stuff for hours and then find you'd only covered about eight pages. And understood about half of it.

Even at their deepest, the Father Brown stories aren't nearly that bad. But neither do they always lend themselves to rocketing through 150 pages in an evening either, as with the typical mystery. Chesterton biographies tell us that he was into philosophy, theology, metaphysics, and mysticism. And as he frequently cuts loose with his mouthpiece Father Brown on these topics, the going can get pretty rugged at times.

So. May I make a suggestion? If you're new to the Father Brown series and really deep academic subjects don't greatly appeal, why not get acquainted with a compilation drawn largely from the first two (out of five) Father Brown story collections? Those would be "The Innocence of Father Brown" and "The Wisdom of Father Brown", originally published in 1911 and 1914 respectively.

Both collections prominently feature the little priest's best known sidekick, the reformed archcriminal Hercule Flambeau. M. Flambeau seems to have had as little use for classical thought as most of the rest of us, and while he's in attendance (roughly one third of the stories altogether), Chesterton plays it pretty straight exposition-wise. And especially when he does, he's a joy to read. It's a common knock against mystery novelists that they lack pure lyrical skills, but I bet that criticism has never been leveled against old G.K.

Father Brown is G. K. Chesterton at his best. Although the stories are formulaic (crime discovered, people make assumptions and come to the wrong conclusion, Father Brown is Catholic and therefore above making those assumptions, and solves the mystery) they are delightful. Read them for the toothsome little plots, the vocabulary used as no one does anymore, the charming English atmosphere, or for any reason- but do read them. Don't miss out on Father Brown!

I stories were entertaining, but I didn't like the book as much as some of the other reviewers did. I like mysteries where I have all the clues and have to decide which are relevant and which are red herrings. In several of the stories the outcome couldn't be determined by the reader. The characters sometimes behaved in a confusing manner. After seeing that a murder had been committed, Father Brown sometimes just walked away. Don't you think he might have called in the police?

Maybe part of the problem is that I'm reading it with modern eyes. Perhaps using the 'N' word for a black person wasn't considered derogatory when the books were written, but it grated on me. There were negative stereotypes of Jews which I found offensive. There was also the assumption that anyone who had a lot of money was evil or at least an unpleasant character. Father Brown's appearance belied his intelligent and perceptive nature, but the character of many other people could be discerned by his/her physical characteristics. Unrealistic, but perhaps indicative of the style of the day.

In any event, the book fit my needs. The timer on my exercise machine had broken, but since I knew that the stories each took me about 20-30 minutes to read I could time my exercise sessions.

This book is awsome!!!!!! Great read!!!!! Almost as good as my favorite book,"The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes!!!!!!! This book deserves 200 stars at least!!!!! I was astounded when I saw that the bookwas only 99 cents!!!!!! I would have paid over $3000 for it!!!!!!!

...perhaps a little lost in time. But anyone who likes the magic of the written word and a bit of mystery, will find something to like here. But know your history to figure out where Father Brown would be in Chesterton's time.

Chesterton matches Biggers, Stout, Christie and other famous authors of detective crime fiction in the early 20th century. His Father Brown series is delightful, entertaining and intriguing. The mysteries are not easily solved by the reader; the crimes are unique. Lastly, Father Brown is a marvelous character.

In my humble, atheistic opinion, G.K. Chesterton is the single greatest writer of mystery stories. At first I was skeptical. Did I really want fancy-schmacy writing in a mystery? It took me awhile to get used to his poetic, incredibly atmospheric and nearly surreal style. But certainly, the grace and moodiness of his writing makes these stories highly re-readable. He's also an amazingly witty writer. There are enough jokes in Chesterton to qualify him as a comic novelist. Although Gore Vidal dismissed him as a "Christian writer", Chesterton echoed Vidal's wisdom when he wrote something to the effect of, "The opposite of funny isn't serious. The opposite of funny is not funny."

Yes, many of the stories are improbable -- they are intentionally dream-like. And yes, they are preachy -- but in the most wonderful way imaginable -- wise and insightful. And even when he is wrong, Chesterton is fun to read.

If you read enough of him you will find he was bigoted against black, Jews and gays. Really disturbing -- but perhaps Christian forgiveness is called for as we remember Chesterton for the genius he was, warts and all.

Chesterton is brilliant, and his work in the public domain deserves better. This edition is poorly formatted. Every line starts on the far left without indents, breaks or separate paragraphs. The illustrations are poorly-reproduced, public domain images unrelated to the story. While it declares itself to be the complete Father Brown, it is not. Buy an edition from a recognized publisher. This edition is a ripoff.

Boy, is it a pleasure to look back on my college days and know that I don't have to wade through works by Plato and Thomas Aquinas and Kant anymore. You could sweat over that stuff for hours and then find you'd only covered about eight pages. And understood about half of it.

Even at their deepest, the Father Brown stories aren't nearly that bad. But neither do they always lend themselves to rocketing through 150 pages in an evening either, as with the typical mystery. Chesterton biographies tell us that he was into philosophy, theology, metaphysics, and mysticism. And as he frequently cuts loose with his mouthpiece Father Brown on these topics, the going can get pretty rugged at times.

So. May I make a suggestion? If you're new to the Father Brown series and really deep academic subjects don't greatly appeal, why not get acquainted with a compilation drawn largely from the first two (out of five) Father Brown story collections? Those would be "The Innocence of Father Brown" and "The Wisdom of Father Brown", originally published in 1911 and 1914 respectively.

Both collections prominently feature the little priest's best known sidekick, the reformed archcriminal Hercule Flambeau. M. Flambeau seems to have had as little use for classical thought as most of the rest of us, and while he's in attendance (roughly one third of the stories altogether), Chesterton plays it pretty straight exposition-wise. And especially when he does, he's a joy to read. It's a common knock against mystery novelists that they lack pure lyrical skills, but I bet that criticism has never been leveled against old G.K.

Father Brown is G. K. Chesterton at his best. Although the stories are formulaic (crime discovered, people make assumptions and come to the wrong conclusion, Father Brown is Catholic and therefore above making those assumptions, and solves the mystery) they are delightful. Read them for the toothsome little plots, the vocabulary used as no one does anymore, the charming English atmosphere, or for any reason- but do read them. Don't miss out on Father Brown!

I stories were entertaining, but I didn't like the book as much as some of the other reviewers did. I like mysteries where I have all the clues and have to decide which are relevant and which are red herrings. In several of the stories the outcome couldn't be determined by the reader. The characters sometimes behaved in a confusing manner. After seeing that a murder had been committed, Father Brown sometimes just walked away. Don't you think he might have called in the police?

Maybe part of the problem is that I'm reading it with modern eyes. Perhaps using the 'N' word for a black person wasn't considered derogatory when the books were written, but it grated on me. There were negative stereotypes of Jews which I found offensive. There was also the assumption that anyone who had a lot of money was evil or at least an unpleasant character. Father Brown's appearance belied his intelligent and perceptive nature, but the character of many other people could be discerned by his/her physical characteristics. Unrealistic, but perhaps indicative of the style of the day.

In any event, the book fit my needs. The timer on my exercise machine had broken, but since I knew that the stories each took me about 20-30 minutes to read I could time my exercise sessions.

These classic stories have brilliant plots. The writing is fantastic. Father Brown is a charming, intuitive, well-read and very bright character. Our mystery group is reading these. They will be fun to discuss.

These aren't classics for nothing but be warned if you have a low tolerance for bees in authors' bonnets - Chesterton has an agressive one about his dedicated Catholicism and it can wear a little thin due to sheer repetition. Most of these stories have at least one pointed exchange about it and his biting satires of groups with different ideas don't exactly come off as even-handed. That said, i just read these stories two or three at a time so i don't miss out on these ingenious mysteries.

This book is awsome!!!!!! Great read!!!!! Almost as good as my favorite book,"The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes!!!!!!! This book deserves 200 stars at least!!!!! I was astounded when I saw that the bookwas only 99 cents!!!!!! I would have paid over $3000 for it!!!!!!!

...perhaps a little lost in time. But anyone who likes the magic of the written word and a bit of mystery, will find something to like here. But know your history to figure out where Father Brown would be in Chesterton's time.

These books are full of casual racism. Every person of color is at best an idiot, but more commonly a villain. The physical descriptions are full of hair-raising racist cliches.

There is no defense that these are period pieces. Plenty of authors of Chesterton's time and milieu wrote sympathetic portrayals of Asians and Africans, or simply left them out of the picture. Chesterton, time and again, goes out of his way to put take people from outside of his little white world and warp them into the representatives of evil.

Oh, and by the way, he took cheap shots at Jews in passing.

I've seen a review recommending Father Brown stories as 'good for kids' due to their lack of blood and gore; I wouldn't give them to any very young person.