Father Brown is in a class by himself, created as he was by G. K. Chesterton. Chesterton was not only a writer of detection mysteries but, as Wikipedia notes, “a literary and social critic, historian, playwright, novelist, Catholic theologian.” He wrote 53 stories about the cleric detective between 1911 and 1936. (The first 12 from 1911 are collected as The Innocence of Father Brown.) Chesterton’s priest believes firmly in a rational God. But from often hearing confessions among “the slums and criminals,” he is “not unlikely to be wholly unaware of human evil” (as the Father tells the master thief Flambeau in The Blue Cross, the first of the stories). But his awareness of evil is more personal. Father Brown tells Flambeau in The Hammer of God (by which time, Flambeau has given up crime to become a private detective and the Father’s friend) as “I am a man... I therefore have all devils in my heart.” Of course all this is Chesterton (a complex enough fellow to fascinate Jorge Borges.)
The Father Brown of the books is mainly interested in saving the soul of the criminal rather than turning him over to the police. (He’ll encourage doing the right thing so the person can set his soul right.) As I read further into the collections of short stories, Chesterton provides very pleasant and beckoning descriptions of countryside, rivers and dells. His descriptions, of places and mental states and active pondering, flow even more easily that they do in P.D. James. He also has Father Brown getting a little playful, gently enjoyable. You might like them, as I have come to do (though some stories are marred by the racial prejudices of the times.) A short story or two per day. (There are five collections and can be downloaded from Project Gutenberg.)
Two TV series have been made from the books, the first in 1974 starring Kenneth Moore. These 13 episodes closely follow the books. They show Father Brown noticing little things that he later reveals put him on the track of the solution (that otherwise he seems to pluck out of thin air). The second, staring Mark Williams and shown on PBS, began in 2013 and is now in its tenth season (an 11th is booked for 2024). These are mostly light stuff and hardly follow the books at all, although this Father Brown does try to get the criminal to repent. The two series are really entirely different. ITV produced the earlier one and BBC the current, both can be streamed via Britbox.
Characters have come and gone along the ten seasons of the BBC series, especially in the tenth. But Mark Williams remains Father Brown. (Williams played Arthur Weasley in the Potter films and a UFO nut in an episode of the excellent New Tricks.) He is a jovial Catholic priest who always has a “legitimate” role at a local murder as he renders last rites. He retains the cleverness that Chesterton gave the original and does try to get the culprit to repent. The shows are set, however, in one of those English villages in the aftermath of WWII that is far more deadly than it should be. This Father Brown is not above ignoring little things that may be illegal in post-war Britain, such as an unjustly accused person who may be gay. The recent season has become a bit more gritty.
I enjoyed the three Father Brown versions. But Chesterton and his creation are not in the same class as Conan Doyle’s Holmes or Christie’s Poirot or Marple. I give the books and TV a solid 3 plus.
Thanks for this solid overview (and for the link to my piece). While I can't speak for the 1970s tv versions, I have been very underwhelmed by the current BBC ones which as you say, are only loosely based on the original. but for any screenwriters (even if they wanted to) it would be very difficult to capture the sheer power of language Chesterton commands in writing... but they could at least try to retain his characters' humor! Anyway, if it leads people to the original stories, somehow, that would be a good thing. The discrepancy between author and adaptation becomes more interesting when you conclude that Christie and Doyle are superior to Chesterton- as writers, specifically, I don't agree, but perhaps in their wider imaginations of mystery plots they had better success. And the great intangible in all this is the personage of David Suchet as Poirot; I can't think of another actor who portrays a character more perfectly than the written one in this genre. He continued to elevate Christie's reputation well into the tv era.