The Innocence of Father Brown

First published in 1911, The Innocence of Father Brown is a collection of detective mystery short stories written by British Christian theologian and writer G. K. Chesterton between 1910 and 1911. The collection consists of 12 short stories in which an English Roman Catholic priest named Father Brown investigates crimes and explores mysteries, using his spiritual and psychological insights and observational skills to solve them, often with the help of French reformed thief Hercule Flambeau. It is the first collection in the fictional Father Brown detective series. Chesterton was a renowned Catholic theologian who wrote multiple nonfiction books on theology, including the 1905 book Heretics, the 1908 book Orthodoxy, and the 1920 book The New Jerusalem. The Innocence of Father Brown had a significant cultural impact; Evelyn Waugh’s novel Brideshead Revisited uses a quote from the book, and it’s also had multiple adaptations, including a 1954 film adaptation of the Father Brown series starring Sir Alec Guinness as the titular protagonist.

This guide refers to the 2021 Warbler Press paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source text contains racist and racially insensitive attitudes and language that were common in the period in which the book was written; this guide discusses these attitudes. The book and this guide also contain references to suicide, drug and alcohol addiction, and mental health conditions; depictions of the aftermath of two deaths by suicide; and descriptions of corpses and murders.

Plot Summaries

The collection begins with the short story “The Blue Cross,” in which Parisian police chief Aristide Valentin follows two priests while pursuing the thief Hercule Flambeau. The shorter priest causes several minor inconveniences until Valentin and other policemen find them. The shorter priest, Father Brown, reveals that he knew about the taller priest, who was Flambeau in disguise trying to steal a relic, and used those inconveniences to alert the police and thwart Flambeau. In the following story, “The Secret Garden,” Valentin hosts a dinner party and gets into an argument with American millionaire Julius K. Brayne over religion. One of the guests, Commandant Neil O’Brien, finds a dead body, and Brayne leaves. Valentin supposes that Brayne killed the man, but when his body appears decapitated, Father Brown finds that Brayne’s head belongs to the first body and that the head is from a guillotined man. Father Brown reveals that Valentin—fiercely opposed to religion—killed Brayne to prevent him from donating his fortune to the Catholic Church. After confronting Valentin with the truth, Father Brown goes to Valentin’s study, only to find the police chief dead from suicide. In the third short story, “The Queer Feet,” Father Brown is invited to the Vernon Hotel at the behest of an elite social club called the Twelve True Fishermen. An Italian waiter has suffered a stroke and is dying, and the Twelve True Fishermen suspect foul play. Soon after, the club’s collection of silver goes missing. Father Brown hears strange footsteps. He then finds Flambeau and convinces him to return the silver.

In “The Flying Stars,” Father Brown visits Colonel Adams; his daughter, Ruby; Ruby’s godfather; Ruby’s love, John Crook; and Ruby’s maternal uncle James Blount for Christmas. The family stages a pantomime play, and during the play, a thief steals Ruby’s Christmas gift from her godfather—three diamonds called the Flying Stars. Father Brown realizes that the thief is Flambeau and convinces him not only to give back the diamonds but also to abandon crime. In the following story, “The Invisible Man,” Father Brown and a now reformed Flambeau help Scotsman John Turnbull Angus catch his love Laura Hope’s murderous, unwanted suitor James Welkin, who makes himself “mentally invisible” by disguising himself as a mail carrier to hide his threats and murder. They also help solve Welkin’s murder of her other suitor, Isidore Smythe. In “The Honor of Israel Gow,” Father Brown and Flambeau investigate Scottish Lord Glengyle’s death, finding a strange inventory there and a missing skull in his grave. However, they find that Lord Glengyle and his family, including his heir Israel Gow, hoard their wealth, with Gow using strange methods—such as digging up Lord Glengyle’s skull for gold teeth.

Then, in “The Wrong Shape,” Father Brown and Flambeau visit Flambeau’s old poet friend Leonard Quinton, whose mental health conditions following opium addiction and his obsession with Eastern mysticism and hypnotism appear to have led him to suicide. However, his doctor, James Harris, reveals that he killed Quinton to be with his wife. After the murder, he suffers remorse, causing him to write a letter of confession and turn himself in to the police. “The Sins of Prince Saradine” also show Flambeau’s past coming back to him with his decision to visit someone interested in his old acquaintance, French Prince Saradine, in his home in Norfolk. However, his and Father Brown’s visit there is disrupted when the son of an Italian man named Antonelli, whom Prince Saradine murdered, battles him in a duel and kills him. After the young Antonelli is taken by police, the manservant Mr. Paul is revealed to be the real Prince Saradine, who had his brother Stephen pose as him—a way to rid himself of his old enemy and his careless brother. “The Hammer of God” has Father Brown investigate the murder of the vulgar Colonel Norman Bohun. While devout Presbyterian Simeon Barnes is an initial suspect, Father Brown finds that the colonel’s brother Reverend Wilfred Bohun killed him for his vulgarity. After Father Brown gives him the choice to come forward or not, Wilfred turns himself in to the police.

“The Eye of Apollo” sees Father Brown and Flambeau investigate the murder of heiress and Flambeau’s fellow office worker Pauline Stacey after she falls to her death. They learn that Kalon, the prophet of a cult worshipping Apollo the sun god, murdered her and intended to get money from her in her will. However, her sister Joan thwarted the attempt, and Kalon reveals his deception, being an American con artist who will soon be found responsible for Pauline’s death. In “The Sign of the Broken Sword,” Father Brown and Flambeau visit the tomb of British war hero Arthur St. Clare. Father Brown reveals that St. Clare was actually a colonizer and traitor who was hanged by his future son-in-law, Captain Keith, and his men. They then mutually decide to forget the man and his story. Finally, in “The Three Tools of Death,” Father Brown investigates the death of beloved Scottish comic Sir Aaron Armstrong, who was known for his cheerfulness. Armstrong’s manservant Magnus accuses his daughter Alice of murdering him with a knife, but Armstrong’s secretary, Patrick Royce, insists that he killed Armstrong himself so that he could be with Alice and that she tried to stop him using the knife. However, Father Brown finds that Armstrong died by suicide and that Royce tried to stop him. Father Brown wishes for Royce and Alice to find peace.