This is the third in the series of Father Brown books. I read the first two back in 2011. The first was ok, the second, meh. But I thought to read some more because my spouse has taken up watching Father Brown videos, on our son's Netflix account, in the middle of the afternoon. Sometimes she even cons me into joining her at the computer. I'm beginning to be drawn in. I suspect there is virtually no similarity between the books and the videos, except for the main character's being a Roman Catholic priest who carries an umbrella around. For one thing, the videos are set well after WWII, whereas the first two books in the series were written before WWI. This, the third in the series of five, short-story books came out in the 192os.

The common theme of the stories in this volume is that someone dies in a way that seems to indicate a supernatural cause. Everyone jumps to the supernatural conclusion...except Father Brown. Now, Father Brown, being a Roman Catholic priest, does fervently believe in some things we might consider supernatural. But he's not much taken in by superstition, and generally looks for a practical answer to the conundrum of the moment.

I think I liked this series of stories better than I liked the second series, but I can no longer be sure because it was 7 years ago that I read, and declared myself to be unimpressed by, those stories. These were ok, but I find short stories difficult to read. Basically, if one can't read them in one sitting, it's way too easy to lose the thread. Novels are much easier to grasp because one naturally lives with them for several days, and also because a single chapter or two is much easier to finish in a single sitting than is a short story such as one of these. Perhaps it's my age, or the fact that I read at only half the speed for success in college, but I'm heading back to a nice juicy novel.

(Original Review, 1981-01-05)



When I was 9 or 10 I loved reading about Sherlock, Father Brown, Pop Larkin, Billy Bunter, Bertie and Jeeves, Just William, etc., etc. Also E. Nesbit. At the same time there was a range of Puffin books that gave me Erik the detective, the dalmatians, One End Street and others. And there was the Children's Book Club -- a monthly hardback volume -- those titles seem to have disappeared, but I half remember them and would be fascinating to revisit them.

 

 

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.

When I read this, in August, 2011, I wasn't much keeping track of things (it's November 2018 when I'm trying to remember this stuff). This was a book of short stories about a Roman Catholic priest in England. He solved crimes in his spare time...or something. My recollection was that it was ok, but not all that great. But then, I'm not much of a fan of reading short stories.

As advertised, this modest kitten squisher contains all five collections of Father Brown stories, as well as both parts of The Donnington Affair. That’s nearly 800 pages of everyone’s favorite short, round priest with the funny round hat. I’ve pretty much been fibro-fogged up the wazoo for the entire month of July, so I figured a book of short stories would be perfect reading and not tax my impaired concentration abilities. I was sort of right.

 

The Blue Cross, the first story in the first collection, is funny, clever, five-star gold. I absolutely loved it and couldn’t wait to read more. The second story went downhill from there, and then my Father Brown experience plateaued in the mildly-entertaining-to-mildly-disappointing range and I found myself skimming or outright skipping entire stories. (Especially any story in which early 1900’s racism reared its ugly head. There was some pretty gross Orientalism and more N-words than I was prepared to encounter. Oh, and if the first person to perfect time travel can go back and ban white British novelists from writing anything to do with voodoo, THAT WOULD BE GREAT.)

 

In hindsight, I probably should have taken a break and read something different between each collection. It turns out my ability to binge-watch the TV series inspired by the stories doesn’t translate to the stories themselves and there is indeed such a thing as too much Father Brown.