The Wisdom of Father Brown — G.K. Chesterton

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.