We don't get stories like this anymoe. Chesterton's style is one of a kind and very good to read.

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Father Brown, wise and wily, is the creation of G.K. Chesterton, and this was my first read by this author. Since I enjoy short stories I found this collection most entertaining.

The six stories are: "The Blue Cross," :The Sins of Prince Saradine," "The Sign of the Broken Sword," "The Man in the Passage," "The Perishing of the Pendragons," and "The Salad of Colonel Cray." My favorites were Saradine and Broken Sword. Prince Saradine survives the greed of his brother by playing to that very greed. Broken Sword demonstrates the intellect of Father Brown who unravels the reputation of a famous soldier. It's great fun.

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G. K. Chesterton is perhaps better known for his books on theology but several attemtps have also been made to reproduce the Father Brown series. If you look on YouTube you can find an old movie with a very young Alec Guinness playing the titular role, and more recently Tom Bosley played the unassuming priest. Father Brown is the precursor to a popular genre of detectives; particularly in the mode of "Columbo" and it is easy for us to forget that this was a novel idea at the time. What makes this book still work is Chesterton's competence as a writer. I couldn't help but wonder if I could borrow a bit of his style; probably not, but it was a pleasant wish.

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This is a selection of six stories (about 16 pages each) taken from the first two Father Brown books: a good sampler reader if you have not read Chesterton before. Father Brown has been described as a priest-sleuth and the stories are considered as detective along the vein of Sherlock Holmes. I would not call them mysteries in the sense of Agatha, or Doyle, but rather posers: more in the manner of J. K. Bangs R. Holmes. If you have read Chestertons The Man Who Knew Too Much, or The Man Who Was Thursday, you will enjoy theseand vice versa.

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