The Innocence of Father Brown cover art

The Innocence of Father Brown

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

The Innocence of Father Brown

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

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £10.99

Buy Now for £10.99

Only £0.99 a month for the first 3 months. Pay £0.99 for the first 3 months, and £8.99/month thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Start my membership

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 Classic Fiction Mysteries

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Blue Cross cover art
Manalive cover art
The Man Who Was Thursday: Centennial Edition cover art
Father Brown cover art
A Man Lay Dead cover art
Friday the Rabbi Slept Late cover art
Noah Primeval cover art
Classic Detective Stories cover art
Winter Journey cover art
The Façade cover art
Iron Lake cover art
The Travelling Grave and Other Stories cover art
The Wisdom of Father Brown, Volume 2 cover art
The Innocence of Father Brown: Centennial Edition cover art
A Morbid Taste For Bones cover art
Some Danger Involved cover art

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
While I love the writing of GK Chesterton, the narrator's voice became grating fairly quickly

Conflicted...

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Fairly enjoyable, the writing is of its time and perhapsnthr style of narration. If you Re looking for something akin to the TV show, this is not it.

a book of its time

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Disappointed with performance not how I hear Father Brown speak. Some stories better than others

Disappointed

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
These stories are written beautifully and with great skill. I recommend them for everyone who likes classic mysteries.

The narration was superb, the voices consistent with each character and the accents well used. It took a few minutes for me to get used to the narrator's voice (it has a strange quality I can't put my finger on), but after that it was great. So I encourage you to give it a try even if it seems at a first listen that the voice is maybe annoying.

brilliant

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Some of the short stories are intriguing, while others felt a bit ho-hum. I enjoyed getting to know Flambau, and the stories with really unexpected endings, but there are also a few that's just a clever explanation of scene that was created.

Maybe I'm not a "who dunnit" fan

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews