The Poet and the Lunatics

An eccentric poet acts as spiritual detective in eight thought-provoking tales. Gabriel Gale employs his extraordinary gifts of empathy to solve and prevent crimes perpetrated by madmen. His philosophical police-work forms the basis for captivating explorations of poetry, insanity, and sin — all expressed in the author's characteristic paradoxes and soaring flights of rhetoric. Best known as the creator of priest-detective Father Brown, G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) ranks among the twentieth century's most influential writers and thinkers. His prodigious talents embraced a wide range of subjects and genres, from philosophy and religion to history, literary criticism, and fantasy.