â??Finally, an Anglican Father Brown.â? Reading this endorsement on the cover of James Runcieâ??s collection, Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death â?? now a full season on ITV and Masterpiece Mystery (Grantchester) â?? I confess that my first response was: â??Really? Who needs one?â?* Compared with G. K. Chestertonâ??s ethereal and inscrutable protagonist, Canon Sidney Chambers of Grantchester seems, well, far too real.
Thatâ??s no accident, of course: while Chestertonâ??s Father Brown is something of a literary Melchizedek, appearing out of nowhere to bless his unsuspecting readers and often far more mysterious than the crimes he solves, Sidney Chambers, according to Runcie, is patterned in large part on his father, the late Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie. In this sense, comparing Mr. Chambers and Father Brown is something of a category mistake. Nevertheless, because the two priest-sleuths share a good deal else in common, a few notes of comparison seem in order. For the sake of simplicity, I will limit my commentary on Sidney Chambers to the TV series.
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