“I am a man,” answered Father Brown gravely; “and therefore have all devils in my heart.”

The Hammer of God by G.K. Chesterton

It occurs to me that I’ve not properly reviewed this book on the blog before! And yet it’s a collection that I enjoy returning to because I really like Chesterton’s language (although I have heard people say that they find it hard to read).

I’m actually not sure what kind of place Chesterton occupies right now. Once a famous and prolific writer, Chesterton has covered everything from theology to fairy tales to detective stories. Father Brown – The Essential Tales is a collection of Chesterton’s detective stories starring Father Brown, a priest who solves murders through his intimate knowledge of human nature.

While each story stands alone, there are a few returning characters – the great detective Valentine (who appears in two stories), and the master criminal turned private investigator Flambeau (who appears in many stories), giving the collection a sense of continuity, or at least that it happens within the same world.

The range of mysteries is quite wide as well. Some of the stories in this collection include:

• The Blue Cross – Father Brown must protect a valuable cross from a world-famous criminal.
• The Hammer of God – A man is killed in a seemingly impossible blow, and with only a small hammer.
• The Invisible Man – When a murder is committed, it seems like the murderer must be invisible. I liked this one because it made me think of who we continuously ignore (and therefore do not value) in society.
• The Absence of Mr Glass – No murders here, but it’s a fun story with a surprising twist.

I think what I enjoy most about these stories is that Chesterton peers into human nature in each one of them. While the solutions are often clever, one gets the sense that Chesterton is less concerned with the how and more interested in the why. What drives people to commit crimes? Everything is found within Father Brown’s and by extension, Chesterton’s worldview. If you are familiar with Chesterton’s non-fiction works, you are probably familiar with how he thinks. Still, the stories should manage to surprise and delight.

Chesterton wrote in the Golden Age of mystery, and yet I think his mysteries stand out because of who he was and how much of himself he poured into his works. I remember first reading this on holiday and enjoying it very much; this reread gave me the same amount of enjoyment and I shall no doubt continue to enjoy the stories again in the future.