View source for The Complete Father Brown Stories by G K Chesterton

{{infobox1
|title=The Complete Father Brown Stories
|sort=Complete Father Brown Stories, The
|author=G K Chesterton
|reviewer=Robert James
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|rating=4.5
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|isbn=978-1849906463
|pages=800
|publisher=BBC Books
|date=January 2013
|summary=Classic crime collection features some of my all-time favourite short stories. The quality tails off very slightly towards the end, but it seems churlish to complain too much given the book's size! Definitely recommended reading.
|cover=1849906467
|aznuk=1849906467
|aznus=1849906467
}}
Having read many of the Father Brown short stories before, and after really enjoying the recent screen version, I jumped at the chance to get hold of this TV tie-in omnibus. The little cleric who has such a mild manner, but a keen knowledge of human evil, is one of my favourite detectives, and it was a pleasure to be able to read this complete collection of his stories.

For the uninitiated, in Father Brown, Chesterton created a wonderful character who’s intelligent, sympathetic, and has a fantastic gift of being able to appeal to people’s better natures. He then plunged him into some of the most ridiculously difficult cases I’ve ever read about – with Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, and other greats of the era, I tend to at least have an outside chance of spotting the solution to a case. When I pick up a Chesterton, I’ve already all but given up hope of solving it myself, I just know that I’ll enjoy trailing in Father Brown’s wake as he sorts it out!

As with any long-running series, the quality here is a little varied – for me, early stories ''The Hammer of God'' and ''The Eye of Apollo'' are two of the greatest crime stories ever written, while a few from the later collections are perhaps slightly weak, at least in comparison to that pair. With that said, the vast majority of the stories are really enjoyable, and to have them all in one volume is wonderful.

One minor point – don’t go into this expecting to know what happened from watching the TV series! Some of the episodes weren’t based on the original stories, and those that were are almost unrecognisable in some cases, due to heavy alterations made. For this reason, it does seem a little strange to have released it as a ‘TV tie-in’ edition, complete with a photo of the wonderful Mark Williams as Father Brown on the front. As long as you bear that in mind, this is a high recommendation for fans of classic crime fiction, and outstanding value for money.

For more classic crime, I'm becoming a huge fan of Sax Rohmer's, despite the outdated attitudes. If you have an open mind, check out the whole Fu Manchu series, starting with [[The Mystery of Dr Fu Manchu by Sax Rohmer]].  You might also enjoy [[The Wit and Wisdom of G K Chesterton by Bevis Hillier]].

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