Incredulity of Father Brown (Version 2)

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These eight Father Brown mysteries depart from Chesterton’s two earlier Father Brown collections – The Innocence of Father Brown, and The Wisdom of Father Brown – in that most take place in America and/or centrally feature American characters. Father Brown is a nondescript, shy, poorly clad and clumsy Catholic priest – and an exceptionally talented detective. He shines not despite, but because he is a humble, quiet, commonplace, Catholic priest. Because of his personal attributes he is frequently underrated and even ignored by professionals, by those with higher status or less reticent personalities. Yet he surpasses them all by his habit of observing and making rational sense of the ordinary, by what is, to most people, the unseen. He does not neglect science and experimentation, but he draws heavily on the habit of introspection and on the psychological insights he has gained by working with the poor, the underclass, and by hearing their confessions and witnessing both true penitence and true evil. He turns upside-down the approach of Sherlock Holmes, which focuses on the facts that allow for theoretical deductions. His detective methods mirror his personality, as his intuition transforms commonplace, apparently unimportant facts into ordinary, prosaic explanations that explain otherwise baffling mysteries. - Summary by Kirsten Wever