SOURCE: “Gilbert Keith Chesterton,” in Twelve Englishmen of Mystery, edited by Earl F. Bargainnier, Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1984, pp. 66–87.

In the following review, Porter explores the “Father Brown” stories as a tool used by Chesterton to demonstrate Christian perspectives.

In the opening sequence of a recent Paul Newman film, Fort Apache: the Bronx, two rookie cops are eating a coffee-and-doughnut breakfast in a parked patrol car.¹ A black woman in a pink dress teeters across the deserted street and banters with the officers. As she straightens up to go, she draws a.38 from her purse and fires point-blank in their faces. With the shots the street comes to life; out of the alleys and the storefront doorways come scavengers who pull the bodies from the car, strip them of guns and shields and leave them bloody on the asphalt. The woman melts away among the grey buildings...