No man's really any good till he knows how bad he is, or might be'

Shabby and lumbering, with a face like a Norfolk dumpling, Father Brown makes for an improbable super-sleuth.

But his innocence is the secret of his success: refusing the scientific method of detection, he adopts instead an approach of simple sympathy, interpreting each crime as a work of art, and each criminal as a man no worse than himself.