THE SECRET OF FATHER BROWN. By G. K. Ches- terton.
(Cassell. 7s. 6d.)—Again there moves, across the stricken scenes of mysterious wrong, the grotesque and thril- ling little figure of the priestly detective, who explains a crime by getting on the trail of a sin, and who recognizes the culprit when he himself has vicariously lived through that Reenlist plot of hate and fear with intensity enough to say : There, but for the grace of God, go I I " The introductory chapter reveals Father Brown seated in the red-lit court of Flambeau's Castle in Spain, gazing into his crimson wine-cup as he reluctantly explains his " method to the goading though courteous American, Grandison Chase : it is one of the most vividly written chapters in the book. All those who are sensitive to Mr. Chesterton's power of creating such an atmo- sphere of horror as might have lain hushed and portentous over the first bloodshed will experience some shaken moments here. For the victims that perish in this book are not sawdust dolls, as in some detective stories ; and such as are drawn within the plot of their disaster are distinct and actual creatures because they are concerned less with the law of man than with the law of God. The dark stories are illuminated by flashes of the guiltless beauty of things—occasionally by the guilty beauty of things • the Gothic note of Mr. Chesterton's imagina- tion sometimes heightens a horror with a gargoylish effect ;
and the unexpected The contain some of the
profounder analyses of the priest conta founder paradoxes of the Chestertonian philosophy. detective instinct is gratified ; but the psychological comment is more perturbing. We are left thinking how desperate is the human heart, and how -finite is human pardon.
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