Showing results by narrator "Allan Monteiro" in All Categories

"The Hammer of God," readers are surprised to learn from Father Brown that the murderer is not a violent madman but rather a very respected member of the community. The Reverend Wilfred Bohun could no longer stand the scandalous behavior of his alcoholic brother Norman, who blasphemed God and humiliated the Reverend Bohun in the eyes of his parishioners. Chesterton states that Wilfred and Norman Bohun belong to an old noble family whose descendants are now mostly "drunkards and dandy degenerates." Rumor has it that there has been "a whisper of insanity" in the Bohun family.

Father Brown (Chesterton's sharp-witted detective priest) and Flambeau (the reformed master-thief and Brown's constant companion) are on a little vacation in Norfolk, invited to visit the mysterious Prince Saradine. It doesn't go well. Sure, Flambeau gets some good fishing in, but there's also a duel with rapiers, a couple murders, a hanging, a case of mistaken identity, an awkward family reunion, and a gang of surly Sicilians.

"The Secret Garden" is a short story by G. K. Chesterton. It was originally published in The Story-Teller in October, 1910. It is the second story in the collection The Innocence of Father Brown. It is the second story about the French detective Valentin and completes his plot arch, begun in The Blue Cross.

"The Flying Stars" is one of Chesterton's mysteries featuring Father Brown. It's actually the first of these short stories I've read and I picked it up more because it's a Christmas mystery than to meet Father Brown, even though he is a character I'd like to read more of. The story takes place at an English manor home on Boxing Day. A young lady and the young man who lives next door are present, as is the girl's father, Colonel Adams, a newly arrived uncle and a quite rich godfather.

Certain of the great roads going north out of London continue far into the country a sort of attenuated and interrupted spectre of a street, with great gaps in the building, but preserving the line. Here will be a group of shops, followed by a fenced field or paddock, and then a famous public-house, and then perhaps a market garden or a nursery garden, and then one large private house, and then another field and another inn, and so on.

"The Blue Cross" is a short story by G. K. Chesterton. It was the first Father Brown short story and also introduces the characters Flambeau and Valentin. It is unique among the Father Brown mysteries in that it does not follow the actions of the Father himself, but rather those of Valentin. It was first published on 23 July 1910, under the title "Valentin Follows a Curious Trail", in the Saturday Evening Post, Philadelphia. Re-titled as "The Blue Cross", publication in London followed, in The Story-Teller magazine of September 1910.

"The Queer Feet" deals with Flambeau wanting to steal the silverware of the members of the Twelve True Fishermen having their annual club dinner at Vernon Hotel. The Vernon Hotel is an exclusive hotel and a "topsy-turvy product" (Chesterton 1994, p. 51).

The tenth story in The Innocence of Father Brown is entitled "The Eye of Apollo." At the beginning of this short story, Flambeau has just opened his detective agency in a new building located near Westminster Abbey. The other tenants in the building are a religious charlatan named Kalon, who claims to be "the New Priest of Apollo," and two sisters, who are typists. Flambeau and Father Brown instinctively distrust Kalon, who has installed a huge eye of Apollo outside his office.