You might think that as a non-believer I’d be somewhat irritated by GK Chesterton’s Father Brown stories – or put off by the little priest-detective’s many snide remarks about atheists. Small and round, droning and monotonous, Father Brown is the most harmless-looking of sleuths: blinking distractedly as he solves a case or makes a big revelation, a gentle soul who believes that the biggest criminals can be redeemed and brought back into the light. But on the subject of non-belief, this sweet man can be mercilessly cutting in his observations – you almost feel he would be glad to see an atheist in hellfire (even if he hadn’t done anything to deserve such a fate).
So there’s a conflict here. And yet, I love the Father Brown short stories – at least the 12 or 13 of them that I have read so far (most of which are from this collection, Father Brown: The Essential Tales, which I borrowed from my friend Samyukta long ago). There is something so rich and evocative about Chesterton’s writing, including the descriptive passages, and there is also something mysterious about the arc of the stories – a narrative often begins on an offbeat, quirky note and it takes a while before you can tell which direction it is going in, and what the nature of the problem (much less the solution) will be. (For a good example, see the first two pages of “The Head of Caesar”, with its description of a particular avenue in Kensington, and a conversation in a little eating-house tucked between tall houses.)
The first Father Brown story I read, years ago, was “The Invisible Man”, which was in a big fat anthology of locked-room (or impossible-crime) mysteries – and I was drawn into it by the opening passage, a description of a bright, inviting confectioner’s shop at twilight. But for anyone who is starting on these stories, I recommend that you begin with “The Blue Cross”, which is where we meet the little priest for the first time – through the eyes of the celebrated Parisian investigator Valentin, who, while on the track of a criminal, encounters Father Brown’s remarkable deductive qualities. (The reader’s experience here exactly mirrors Valentin’s: we have his vantage point throughout the story, and Father Brown – initially dismissed as a delicate little naïf – comes into clear relief only in the final few pages; by the end of the story, all our pre-conceptions about what a Great Detective must look and behave like have been swept away.)
“The Blue Cross” also introduces another major character, the criminal mastermind Flambeau who is eventually “saved” by Father Brown and ends up on the right side of the law, assisting the priest in some cases. One of my favourites in that lot is “The Honour of Israel Gow”, an unusual tale about the recent death of an Earl who was living alone in a castle with a half-witted servant named Israel Gow. As Father Brown, Flambeau and others enter this space, they are confronted with several inexplicable objects including piles of snuff, loose diamonds, candles without candlesticks, and lead pencils without cases. Of course, Father Brown does find the connection between these objects in the end – and it’s a marvellous, whimsical solution – but what’s more amusing is that early in the story, he casually comes up with a few other explanations of what the link between these items might be. Before telling his fellow investigators that no, none of these is the right answer. (The effect is a little similar to that of the famous “Locked-Room Lecture” in John Dickson Carr’s The Hollow Man.)
Other stories I have especially enjoyed: “The Hammer of God”, “The Secret Garden”, “The Three Tools of Death”, “The Man in the Passage”, and “The Absence of Mr Glass” (which turns out to be slight, even silly, as a mystery, but is very enjoyable for all that). Looking forward to reading more, though availability is an issue.
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