The Innocence of Father Brown cover art

The Innocence of Father Brown

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
1 credit a month to buy any audiobook in our entire collection.
Access to thousands of additional audiobooks and Originals from the Plus Catalogue.
Member-only deals & discounts.
Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

The Innocence of Father Brown

By: G. K. Chesterton
Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
Try Premium Plus free

$16.45 per month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $16.99

Buy Now for $16.99

About this listen

Detective fans of all races and creeds, of all tastes and fancies will delight in the exploits of this wise and whimsical padre. Father Brown’s powers of detection allow him to sit beside the immortal Holmes, but he is also "in all senses a most pleasantly fascinating human being", according to American crime novelist Rufus King. You will be enchanted by the scandalously innocent man of the cloth, with his handy umbrella, who exhibits such uncanny insight into ingeniously tricky human problems.

This collection of 12 mysteries solved by Father Brown includes: "The Blue Cross", "The Secret Garden", "The Queer Feet", "The Flying Stars", "The Invisible Man", "The Honour of Israel Gow", "The Wrong Shape", "The Sins of Prince Saradine", "The Hammer of God", "The Eye of Apollo", "The Sign of the Broken Sword", and "The Three Tools of Death".

©1933 G. K. Chesterton (P)1992 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Anthologies & Short Stories Detective Mystery Traditional Detectives Fiction Mystery Anthology

Critic Reviews

“G. K. Chesterton’s tales [are] of the unassuming Catholic priest who claims that his work at the confessional (where he has to do ‘next to nothing but hear men’s real sins’) puts him in an excellent position to solve the bizarre crimes that come his way in pre–First World War England…. The unassuming cleric, whose humble conviction that his God will eventually triumph over the souls of even the most evil of criminals, is the quiet but insistent heartbeat of these unusual exercises in detective fiction.” ( Sunday Times, London)
All stars
Most relevant  
I enjoyed Davidson's narration and character voicings very much. His drily ironic and old fashioned, theatrical voice gave much humour to the narration, a voice like Edward Petherbridge's but more sardonic. Father Brown's voice was a fabulous nasal and mysteriously innocent one, that matched the character. I haven't explored Chesterton's writings so far, and though there's a lot that would be offensive nowadays (slurs on most nationalities not British), and his views on atheism were cartoonish, I thought these stories were clever and sufficiently hilarious to finish.

Frederick Davidson enlivens

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I have loved Sherlock Holmes since devouring Simon Vance's narration of the Complete Works; and came across The Innocence of Father Brown as an avid follower of Frederick Davidson's narration.
Before deciding to buy it, I read a quote where Gramsci compares the mediocrity of Conan-Doyle and the genius of Chesterton. Having tested his surprising claim, I am afraid to report that old Italian Marxist was right. Chesterton is a genius. And while I love Cona-Doyle, he is a clumsy imitation.
Free tip: I have heard people complain about Davidson and wish that John Lee would narrate the books instead. They are Philistines.

I came to test Gramsci

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
horrible narrator...voice like nails on a chalk board....managed about a minute before I had to give up

horrible narrator

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Awful narration. Why pick a man with a very nasal voice to narrate an audiobook and then have him give the hero of the book an extra nasally voice?

But I'm sorry to say the stories aren't worth reading even if it had excellent narration.

GK Chesterton was clearly inspired by Sherlock Holmes stories which are predominantly lots of short disconnected stories that are entertaining and the characters interesting and relateable, but Brown's characters in all the disjointed, badly-constructed stories are all of low intelligence and are flat, colourless characters, including a vague second hero of the ex criminal Flambeau (we start the book hearing of his brilliance but he never says anything other than how confused or frustrated he is, a very dumb Watson-like character who is sometimes the criminal in the story - who keeps getting freed to be caught by Brown again - and other times Brown is assisting him). There is NO set up for Brown - we learn nothing about him, the stories just start and we need to figure out the rest ourselves. There is just no life in these stories.

I have a lot of tolerance for older mysteries - can't impose Agatha standards - but this was just really poor characters, poor mysteries and terrible narration - I really didn't get any enjoyment out of these stories and although I really tried, I stopped half way through.

Tough going, awful stories, couldn't finish it

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.