This volume is a collection of four books which I shall review separately.
Book One: The Innocence of Fr. Brown. The little priest is a whiz-bang analyzer and reaches conclusions far in advance of those with him. The curious, and disconcerting, aspect of these stories is the ubiquitousness of Fr. Brown. He turns up in the most unusual places in a most timely manner. It is entertaining but can become boring.

These are all clever tales. Usually the plot concerns an event in which some terrible crime has been committed, but Fr Brown finds a simpler and less violent thing had actually happened. ( )

Chestertonove detektívne poviedky môžeme smelo zaradiť k najlepším dielam klasickej detektívky a najmä k románom sira Arthura Conana Doyla. Nenápadný, ošumelý, postavou ťarbavý, na prvý pohľad naivný, ba až smiešny katolícky kňaz postupne rozuzlí navonok neriešiteľné kriminálne prípady a svojím racionalizmom a dôsledne logickým myšlienkovým postupom prekvapuje aj najskúsenejších profesionálnych detektívov. Na rozdiel od Sherlocka Holmesa, ktorý pri práci používa aj vedecké metódy, otec Brown dedukuje svoje závery pri odhaľovaní zločinu či zdanlivo nevysvetliteľnej „nadprirodzenej“ situácie na základe dokonalej znalosti ľudskej povahy a psychológie.

this wasn't as good as i remembered it being. i had to resort to listening to it as an audio book to get through it and the weird inconsistencies in morals between the narrator and father brown and sometimes father brown and himself were just very :/ to me. i had a half hour left on the audio book but i'm not gunna bother to finish it. ( )

Entertaining, at times a bit formulaic. Like all crime and mysteries series', at the heart is an interesting, unforgettable protagonist. Father Brown is an anti-Sherlock, unprepossessing, a small man with a moon-like face and a big black knobby umbrella. At almost all times polite, at all times humane. Reading all the stories back to back, one senses some development from one collection to the next. The earliest stories are marred by a reflexive anti-protestantism, against both Church of England and Dissenting groups. Those in succeeding collections are more tolerant. Recurring throughout however is a trace of xenophobia; Chesterton's references to blacks, while not as virulent of those of his contemporary Thomas Wolfe, are unacceptable today, his references to Jews are nearly as bad. Balanced against this are the pleasures of Chesterton's habitual turn to paradox and view of life both comic and moral (without being priggish). The perfect companion for my weekly commutes to this city this semester. ( )