One of the most idiosyncratic detectives in English fiction, Father Brown is the stumpy little curé of Essex with an intuitive gift for solving even the most puzzling and paradoxical crimes. A small, disorganized, ordinary priest, Father Brown is an unlikely genius when it comes to piecing together strange and mysterious clues. Yet his ingenuity and intuition are unsurpassed, and his gift for deduction raises him to the top rank of investigators. The stories in this volume are brimming with original and witty ideas, some of which turn the classic mystery story on its head. Father Brown himself, inept, unworldly but extremely astute, also breaks with tradition in becoming one of the great men of detective fiction.