布朗神父的清白The Innocence of Father Brown吉尔伯特·基思·切斯特顿Gilbert Keith Chesterton
First published in 1911, The Innocence of Father Brown is the first of G. K. Chesterton's mystery anthologies featuring his eponymous Roman Catholic sleuth. There are twelve Father Brown mysteries in this collection:The Blue Cross, The Secret Garden, The Queer Feet, The Flying Stars, The Invisible Man, The Honour of Israel Gow, The Wrong Shape, The Sins of Prince Saradine, The Hammer of God, The Eye of Apollo, The Sign of the Broken Sword and The Three Tools of Death.
G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) was a prolific English journalist and author best known for his mystery series featuring the priest-detective Father Brown and for the metaphysical thriller The Man Who Was Thursday. Baptized into the Church of England, Chesterton underwent a crisis of faith as a young man and became fascinated with the occult. He eventually converted to Roman Catholicism and published some of Christianity's most influential apologetics, including Heretics and Orthodoxy.
切斯特顿于1910年9月发表第一篇以布朗神父为侦探的小说《蓝宝石十字架》，此后，创作以布朗神父为侦探的系列小说52篇。分别集结成《布朗神父的清白》（The Innocence of Father Brown，1911年）、《布朗神父的智慧》（The Wisdom of Father Brown，1914年）、《布朗神父的怀疑》（The Incredulity of Father Brown，1926年）、《布朗神父的秘密》（The Secret of Father Brown，1927年）和《布朗神父的谣言》（The Scandal of Father Brown，1935年）5部短篇集。20世纪70年代末，布朗神父系列小说被改编成电视剧，备受观众青睐。
切斯特顿笔下的侦探布朗是一个天主教神父，矮矮的个子，圆圆的脑袋，胖胖的面容。头戴小圆帽，手握遮阳伞，他天性怕羞，说话结结巴巴。表面上看起来憨厚纯真，似乎与探案完全无缘。这位大智若愚的名探，富于洞察和逻辑推理能力，对罪犯心理和作案手段无不通晓，但有时会词不达意。他常常将罪犯逼上绝路，并不时地吐出辛辣的警句，令人捧腹。他常说：“罪犯是具有创造性的艺术家，而侦探只不过是评论家罢了。”布朗神父的非凡智力表现在，能从看来无关紧要的小事中嗅出难以察觉的犯罪迹象，然后，以异想天开又合乎情理的推理来解开谜底。
经过近一个世纪的时间考验，以致于研究犯罪题材作品的史学家们一致公认为它们是有史以来最好的短篇侦探推理杰作。至今，布朗神父仍是英国家喻户晓、脍炙人口的传奇英雄人物之一，因而与爱伦·坡笔下的西·奥古斯特·杜宾和阿瑟·柯南·道尔塑造的夏洛克·福尔摩斯并称为“世界三大名侦探”。
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Between the silver ribbon of morning and the green glittering ribbon of sea, the boat touched Harwich and let loose a swarm of folk like flies, among whom the man we must follow was by no means conspicuous—nor wished to be. There was nothing notable about him, except a slight contrast between the holiday gaiety of his clothes and the official gravity of his face. His clothes included a slight, pale grey jacket, a white waistcoat, and a silver straw hat with a grey-blue ribbon. His lean face was dark by contrast, and ended in a curt black beard that looked Spanish and suggested an Elizabethan ruff. He was smoking a cigarette with the seriousness of an idler. There was nothing about him to indicate the fact that the grey jacket covered a loaded revolver, that the white waistcoat covered a police card, or that the straw hat covered one of the most powerful intellects in Europe. For this was Valentin himself, the head of the Paris police and the most famous investigator of the world; and he was coming from Brussels to London to make the greatest arrest of the century.
Flambeau was in England. The police of three countries had tracked the great criminal at last from Ghent to Brussels, from Brussels to the Hook of Holland; and it was conjectured that he would take some advantage of the unfamiliarity and confusion of the Eucharistic Congress, then taking place in London. Probably he would travel as some minor clerk or secretary connected with it; but, of course, Valentin could not be certain; nobody could be certain about Flambeau.
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