Padre Brown, insieme a Flambeu e all’ispettore Carven, indaga sulla morte di Archibald Ogilvo, conte di Glengyle. Tra le cianfrusaglie accumulate nel castello, alcune alimentano non pochi sospetti sulla vita del conte: tabacco sparso ovunque, moccoli di candele, piccoli diamanti e lamelle di ferro. L’unica cosa che manca nel castello è l’oro. I sospetti su una tragica fine del conte ricadono sul domestico Israel Gow. Tuttavia, niente è come sembra.

Chesterton portrays Father Brown as a short, stumpy Roman Catholic priest, with shapeless clothes, a large umbrella, and an uncanny insight into human evil. In "The Head of Caesar" he is "formerly priest of Cobhole in Essex, and now working in London." He makes his first appearance in the story "The Blue Cross" published in 1910 and continues to appear throughout forty-eight short stories in five volumes, with two more stories discovered and published posthumously, often assisted in his crime-solving by the reformed criminal M. Hercule Flambeau. Brown's abilities are also considerably shaped by his experience as a priest and confessor. In "The Blue Cross," when asked by Flambeau, who has been masquerading as a priest, how he knew of all sorts of criminal "horrors," Father Brown responds: "Has it never struck you that a man who does next to nothing but hear men's real sins is not likely to be wholly unaware of human evil?" He also states how he knew Flambeau was not really a priest: "You attacked reason. It's bad theology." The stories normally contain a rational explanation of who the murderer was and how Brown worked it out. He always emphasises rationality; some stories, such as "The Miracle of Moon Crescent," "The Oracle of the Dog," "The Blast of the Book" and "The Dagger with Wings," poke fun at initially sceptical characters who become convinced of a supernatural explanation for some strange occurrence, but Father Brown easily sees the perfectly ordinary, natural explanation. In fact, he seems to represent an ideal of a devout but considerably educated and "civilised" clergyman. That can be traced to the influence of Roman Catholic thought on Chesterton. Father Brown is characteristically humble and is usually rather quiet, except to say something profound. Although he tends to handle crimes with a steady, realistic approach, he believes in the supernatural as the greatest reason of all.

Following them into an inner room, Father Brown found that the allies had been seated at a long oak table, of which their end was covered with scribbled papers, flanked with whisky and cigars. Through the whole of its remaining length it was occupied by detached objects arranged at intervals; objects about as inexplicable as any objects could be. One looked like a small heap of glittering broken glass. Another looked like a high heap of brown dust. A third appeared to be a plain stick of wood.

A stormy evening of olive and silver was closing in, as Father Brown, wrapped in a grey Scotch plaid, came to the end of a grey Scotch valley and beheld the strange castle of Glengyle. It stopped one end of the glen or hollow like a blind alley; and it looked like the end of the world. Rising in steep roofs and spires of seagreen slate in the manner of the old French-Scotch chateaux, it reminded an Englishman of the sinister steeple-hats of witches in fairy tales; and the pine woods that rocked round the green turrets looked, by comparison, as black as numberless flocks of ravens.

* Solve amazing mysteries with Britain's most unlikely detective, Father Brown!* The books the inspired the hit BBC / Netflix series: Father Brown. * Join this kindly old priest, from the hit BBC TV series, as he solves mysteries in Kembleford. * Marvel as Father Brown and his friends, Ms. McCarthy, Lady Felicia, and Sid confront dangerous criminals in the British countryside.* Watch Father Brown compete with and try to reform the mysterious jewel thief, Flambeau!* Can you solve the mysteries before Father Brown? Try today in this amazing book!father brown, father brown dvd, father brown book, father brown mysteries, father brown show

"The most beautiful crime I ever committed," Flambeau would say in his highly moral old age, "was also, by a singular coincidence, my last. It was committed at Christmas. As an artist I had always attempted to provide crimes suitable to the special season or landscapes in which I found myself, choosing this or that terrace or garden for a catastrophe, as if for a statuary group.

A Father Brown Mystery taken from The Innocence of Father Brown.

A Father Brown Mystery taken from The Wisdom of Father Brown. This version is great way to introduce someone to G. K. Chesterton's great amateur detective.

Father Brown, an ordinary priest whose unremarkable exterior conceals extraordinary crime-solving ability, is celebrated for his solutions to metaphysical mysteries, a genre perfected by his creator, G. K. Chesterton. More than lighthearted comedies built around puzzling crimes, these superbly written tales contain deeply perceptive philosophical reflections. The Innocence of Father Brown (1911) was the first collection of stories featuring the ecclesiastical sleuth and is widely considered the best. In this annotated edition of the collection, the Chesterton scholar Martin Gardner provides detailed notes and background information on various aspects of such stories as "The Blue Cross," "The Secret Garden," "The Invisible Man," "The Hammer of God," "The Eye of Apollo," and seven more, as well as an informative introduction and an extensive bibliography. Included also are eight illustrations reproduced from the first edition. The result is an indispensable companion for all Chesterton enthusiasts and a perfect introduction for anyone who has yet to meet the incomparable Father Brown.

G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown may seem a pleasantly doddering Roman Catholic priest, but appearances deceive. With keen observation and an unerring sense of man’s frailties–gained during his years listening to confessions–Father Brown succeeds in bringing even the most elusive criminals to justice. This definitive collection of fifteen stories, selected by the American Chesterton Society, includes such classics as “The Blue Cross,” “The Secret Garden,” and “The Paradise of Thieves.” As P. D. James writes in her Introduction, “We read the Father Brown stories for a variety pleasures, including their ingenuity, their wit and intelligence, and for the brilliance of the writing. But they provide more. Chesterton was concerned with the greatest of all problems, the vagaries of the human heart.”