This is a collection of short stories about Father Brown, a Catholic priest who solves mysteries in his spare time. If you're looking for realistic crime fiction, this is not it. But the tales are charming and the writing is exquisite.

There is a scene in the BBC production of "Brideshead Revisited" where Lady Marchmain is reading aloud from the Father Brown Mysteries (the story "Queer Feet"). A beautiful line from that story provides one of the themes of "Brideshead": “I caught him, with an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world, and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread.”

Hearing the excerpt in that setting is what prompted me read the Father Brown mysteries! I'm embarrassed to admit that it often takes hearing a line spoken in a movie or on TV for me to realize how beautiful it is. If I had just read it on my own would I have even noticed it?