In the quiet village of Beaconsfield, a short, stumpy Catholic priest carries a large umbrella and solves crimes that confound Scotland Yard. Father Brown appears harmless, even dull, a man whose mild face and shapeless clothes hide an uncanny understanding of human evil. When his towering friend Hercule Flambeau, a former criminal turned private detective, stumbles into impossible mysteries, it is Brown who sees what others miss: not the mechanics of the crime, but the soul behind it. 'How did you ever hear of the spiked bracelet?' Flambeau demands. 'Oh, one's little flock, you know!' Brown replies, with that devastating blankness. The first collection of G.K. Chesterton's beloved detective stories, The Innocence of Father Brown offers something rare: detective fiction that treats sin as a priest understands it, and innocence as a detective story has never quite captured before.
