The biggest mystery in this collection of mystery stories is why G. K. Chesterton is so renowned for writing them. Going by the evidence of this book alone, building a mystery was not something the man did well.
The eight tales all feature Horne Fisher, a brilliant yet somewhat languid product of upper-class Great Britain, back when class still meant something. In each story, Fisher analyzes a particular situation, offers up a few paradoxical aphorisms, leaps to some bizarre conclusion that Chesterton strains to show as somehow exactly right, then explains to his reporter friend Harold March why he won’t do a single thing to right whatever wrong has been committed.
