The Secret of Father Brown

The Secret of Father Brown

Summary

The fourth collection of Father Brown stories featuring the ingenious amateur detective. Ahead of a new series of the popular BBC adaptation starring Mark Williams, all five of Chesterton's original Father Brown books have been republished with charming and collectible Penguin covers.

'You see, I had murdered them all myself ... I had thought out exactly how a thing like that could be done, and in what style or state of mind a man could really do it. And when I was quite sure that I felt exactly like the murderer myself, of course I knew who he was.'

Unassuming super-sleuth Father Brown has such brilliant powers of deduction that he knows more about crime than the criminals themselves. In this fourth volume of stories, the shabby priest unravels the most baffling conundrums involving, among others, a flying fish, a man with two beards and the Worst Crime in the World.

G. K. Chesterton was born in 1874. He attended the Slade School of Art, where he appears to have suffered a nervous breakdown, before turning his hand to journalism. A prolific writer throughout his life, his best- known books include The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1922), The Man Who Was Thursday (1908) and the Father Brown stories. Chesterton converted to Roman Catholicism in 1922 and died in 1938.

'Chesterton knew how to make the most of a detective story' Jorge Luis Borges

Reviews

  • Chesterton knew how to make the most of a detective story
    Jorge Luis Borges

About the author

G K Chesterton

G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) was an artist, philosopher, columnist, arts critic and prolific writer. A very large man of 6'4" and 21 stone, Chesterton also had a 'colossal genius' according to his friend George Bernard Shaw - and his work, particularly The Man Who Was Thursday and the Father Brown stories, has had an astounding impact on English fiction. Chesterton died of heart failure in his home in 1936, and was given a Requiem Mass in Westminster Cathedral.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more