The Man Who Knew Too Much

The Man Who Knew Too Much by G.K. Chesterton

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was harder to read than most of Chesterton's work. His sleuth, Horne Fisher, is not as compelling as Father Brown and most of the mysteries are very short and end without the lawbreakers being brought to justice formally, although in many cases, justice ends up being served anyway.

The other problem I had with the book was the amount of British politics in it. Since I don't recognize the titles for various political offices, it was often hard to get an understanding of the issues. That being said, the stories did make sense and the solutions of the mystery were amazingly clever, especially the one about Prince Michael and the tower.

As usual, Chesterton writes beautifully and has such a wonderful power of description that most of the characters became very real with the exception of Horne Fisher. For most of the stories, he is more of an observer, so the lack of personal details makes some sense, but I would have liked it more if he had been better drawn.
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