G K Chesterton

The Innocence of Father Brown G K Chesterton

The Innocence of Father Brown was revolutionary in detective fiction, which at that time was dominated not only by Sherlock Holmes, but by a myriad of poor imitations trying to outdo one another with ever more baffling crimes and convoluted puzzles. Chesterton favored the cozy mystery, the domestic murder, with a millionaire usually performing the important service of being the murder victim and the scope of the investigation narrowed to limited time, limited space, and a limited number of suspects, with all the clues revealed to the reader as well as to the detective. As a fan of detective fiction himself, he knew that the reader enjoyed being fooled, but being fooled fairly. Not only did he help establish the rules of fair play in the genre, but his emphasis on motive and character freed detective fiction from the copycat techniques of the rivals of Sherlock Holmes. The leading mystery writers of his day quickly embraced this new style of murder mystery.