The The Most radio detectives we've heard on the podcast carried a badge in their fight against crime.

Others stared down evil doers with a glare in a 45 automatic.

Father Brown was a short, stout, rumpled Catholic priest who was never without his trusted umbrella. In other words he was far from the

typical detective but his exploits have engaged mystery fans for over 100 years.

Father Brown was created by G. K. Chester over 100 years.

Father Brown was created by G. K. Chesterton, the English novelist and theologian.

Hailed by George Bernard Shaw as a man of colossal genius, Chesterton wrote novels, poems, short stories, plays, and over 4,000 essays.

He wrote extensively about Christianity, even before he converted to Catholicism, Christian themes played heavily in his work, especially in the Father Brown mysteries.

Chesterton based his fictional priest on Father John O'Connor, the Irish

priest who was involved in Chesterton's own conversion to Catholicism in 1922,

though he introduced the character of Father Brown 12 years earlier in a serialized story in 1910.

In all, Chesterton wrote more than 50 stories starring Father Brown before his death in 1936.

As a detective, Father Brown relied on his insight into human nature.

That insight cultivated from his years in the priesthood and as a confessor.

His methods were rooted in philosophy and spirituality.

In his first appearance in the Blue Cross in 1910, he observes that a priest who hears men's confessions is not likely to be wholly unaware of human evil.

Also in that first story, Father Brown meets unaware of human evil.

Also in that first story, Father Brown meets Flambeau, a master French thief who goes on

to appear in most of the Chesterton short stories. Over time however flambeau reforms his dastardly ways

and he becomes a private detective converted thanks to his relationship and

later friendship with Father Brown. Father Brown hit the big screen in 1934 in Father Brown,

in Father Brown, Detective.

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