History Literature / FatherBrown

** Having read "The Blue Cross", the reader would be justified in thinking that Valentin would act as Father Brown's InspectorLestrade FriendOnTheForce, with Flambeau as the [[BigBad Moriarty]] of the series. However, "The Secret Garden" has Valentin DrivenToSoicide after a FaceHeelTurn.

** A key clue to the mystery is some unexplained sneezes heard near the scene of the crime. It is eventually explained that the criminal sneezed when throwing away to the dustbin the pepper that could have been used to counter the action of the poison he was planning to use.

* RealityEnsues: Pauline Stacey's refusal to acknowledge [[spoiler:her vision loss]] and commitment to Kalon's Church of Apollo, which has a rite of staring directly into the sun, [[spoiler:causes her to go blind.]]

* BeMyValentine: Aristide Valentin in "The Blue Cross" and "The Secret Garden."

* INeverSaidItWasPoison: Done remarkably subtly in "The Green Man". [[spoiler:The victim, a seaman returning from the long-distance sea travel, was found dead in a pool. However, when the murderer was told that the victim had drowned, he immediately asked where the body was found -- though the logical conclusion would be that the seaman had drowned at sea and thus his body was never recovered.]]

** In "The Blue Cross", Flambeau pretends to be a clergyman with the intention of robbing Father Brown of the titular artifact. Father Brown rumbles him because he [[CriticalResearchFailure tries to argue for moral relativism]].

''Father Brown'' is a detective series created by Creator/GKChesterton. The protagonist is actually called Father J. Brown, though we are never told what the initial stands for, and is originally presented as the parish priest of Cobhole in [[UsefulNotes/HomeCounties Essex]], though he is found in parishes as far afield as Italy and South America. In appearance he is undistinguished, small and dumpy, short-sighted and not particularly intelligent; dressed in shabby clerical black, and carrying an umbrella as dumpy and shabby as himself.

** The solution of [[spoiler:"The Three Tools of Death"]]. Unusually, the appearance of murder was by chance and not by malicious intent on the part of the dead person.

* LiteraryAgentHypothesis: [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed.]] It is mentioned in "The Resurrection of Father Brown" that an American journalist Saul Snaith arranged for publishing "a series of stories, like the stories of [[Literature/SherlockHolmes Sherlock Holmes]]" about Father Brown; however, it isn't exactly clear if they have anything to do with the actual stories we're reading.
* MadArtist: Played seriously in “The Actor and the Alibi”, where [[spoiler: an actress murders her stage manager husband and makes off with a young actor for fame and glory]], and deconstructed in “The Mirror of the Magistrate” where an artist’s eccentric behaviour makes him a suspect in a murder.

* CriminalMindGames: "The Insoluble Problem".

The full collection can be read [[https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/c/chesterton/gk/c52fb/ here]].

* Romanticism Versus Enlightenment: While on the whole Father Brown is Team Enlightenment and is able to see through superstitions and supernatural hoaxes, these stories were set at the turn of the 20th century, in itself considered a romantic and idealistic time.

* SuddenlyShouting: Being a preacher, Father Brown has a trick of projecting his voice at crucial moments -- such as in "The Dagger with Wings", when he wants to be heard by the police he knows have the house surrounded.

* ExactWords:
** Father Brown suffers from this constantly, as in "The Quick One": "...I never said he was a murderer. I said he was the man we wanted."