Medium – Book
About the Book – The first in the series of Father Brown short stories, written by G.K. Chesterton. The book introduces the character of Father Brown, the catholic priest with the propensity for solving crimes, alongside his enemy-but-then-friend, the criminal Hercule Flambeau. The book gives 12 short stories, all showing off Father Brown’s good character and amazing detective skills to the best of their ability. Unlike the recent TV series based on the books, the recurring characters are Father Brown and Flambeau, who later in the book ‘team up’ to solve mysteries and catch criminals.
My Thoughts – I am a massive fan of the recent TV series based on the Father Brown books, so was looking forward to reading this. Unfortunately, this is one of those rare occasions where I think the TV series might be better than the book! This is very much a book of its time – Father Brown seems almost just a plot point, rather than a character in his own right. He is not expanded upon and is not explored in any great detail – I would argue that this happens to Flambeau, but not to him. It seems to be a fairly common convention in ‘older’ detective fiction that the life and character of the detective are not explored in great detail – instead, the detective is generalised as ‘a good man’.
I also found that some of the stories dragged a little – the first two were quite gripping, but I found that I was skipping the first few pages which ‘set the scene’ to the point in the story where the action was starting to happen and this didn’t diminish my understanding of the story at all! The murders all seemed to be quite complicated and always seemed to follow a set formula – the murder is committed, Father Brown (with or without Flambeau) arrives, the wrong person is suspected/caught for the murder, after Father Brown’s intervention, the right person is caught. And… repeat. Not a book I would go back to again – but I will watch the TV show!
Jen's Book Blog 