Question aside from Father Brown, are there any other fictional clerical detectives?
Clerical detectives – priests, monks, rabbis and other religious figures solving crimes – are popular because they blend moral wisdom, keen observation and a unique outsider perspective on human nature.
Ellis Peters’s Brother Cadfael is one of the best. Debuting in A Morbid Taste For Bones (1977), set in 12th-century Shropshire, Cadfael is a former soldier, sailor and herbalist turned Benedictine monk.
His rich life experience sets him apart from other sleuths. His knowledge of medicine, plants and human nature helps him solve intricate medieval mysteries, while his compassion and moral integrity make him a compelling character.
Created by author Peter Tremayne, Sister Fidelma is a 7th-century Irish nun, who debuted in Absolution By Murder (1994). A sister to a king and a skilled detective, Sister Fidelma solves mysteries and crimes with her sharp intellect and knowledge of ancient Irish law and customs.
TV viewers will be aware of The Grantchester Mysteries, featuring clergyman-detective Canon Sidney Chambers, of Ely Cathedral. This began as a series of novels by James Runcie, starting with Sidney
Chambers And The Shadow Of Death (2012).
Clerical detectives – priests, monks, rabbis and other religious figures solving crimes – are popular because they blend moral wisdom, keen observation and a unique outsider perspective on human nature
Father Brown is a fictional Roman Catholic priest and amateur detective. He is featured in 53 short stories by English author G. K. Chesterton, published between 1910 and 1936
There are many examples from across the pond. The best-known is perhaps Father Dowling, created by Ralph McInerny and debuting in Her Death Of Cold (1977). Dowling is a Catholic priest in Chicago who investigates crimes with the help of his assistant, Sister Steve. It was made into a TV series, Father Dowling Mysteries, starring Tom Bosley and Tracy Nelson.
A personal favourite is Rabbi David Small. Created by Harry Kemelman and debuting in Friday The Rabbi Slept Late (1964), Rabbi Small is a Conservative Jewish rabbi in Massachusetts who uses Talmudic logic to solve crimes.
France had Sister Angele, created by Henri Catalan, who debuted in Le Cas De Soeur Angele (1952).
Helen Carter, Fleet, Hants
QUESTION The heist film 21 features a scene in which a student states that Newton ‘borrowed’ his method for approximating roots from a mathematician called Raphson. Is this true?
21 (2008) is based on a true story and follows a group of MIT students who use card-counting techniques to beat blackjack tables in Las Vegas, led by their professor.
The professor (Kevin Spacey) asks his students who can explain Newton’s method of non-linear equations and how to use it. Ben (Jim Sturgess) claims ‘Newton stole it… Raphson published the same method 50 years earlier’.
It is not true. Isaac Newton (1643-1727) first introduced the method in his work Method of Fluxions, written in 1671. However, it was published posthumously in 1736. Newton did not present it in the form commonly used today. Instead, his approach was embedded within his broader work on calculus.
Joseph Raphson (c.1668-c.1715), an English mathematician, independently published his version in Analysis Aequationum Universalis in 1690, where he presented an iterative approach closer to the modern formulation. Unlike
Newton’s original derivation, Raphson’s method was more accessible and systematically applied to numerical approximations.
The method is now credited to both, as Raphson’s refinements made Newton’s approach more practical, leading to the combined name Newton-Raphson method.
Kate McGee, Oxford
QUESTION Does any other language have its equivalent to our ‘The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog’ pangram?
A pangram is a sentence containing every letter of the alphabet. The most familiar English-language pangram, ‘The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog’, does indeed have its equivalents in other languages, some of which may include all the additional special characters used in those languages.
French: Portez ce vieux whisky au juge blond qui fume (Take this old whisky to the blond judge who is smoking).
German: Victor jagt zwölf
Boxkämpfer quer über den großen Sylter Deich (Victor chases twelve boxers across the Great Levee of Sylt).
Spanish: Un jugoso zumo de piña y kiwi bien frío es exquisito y no lleva alcohol (A juicy, chilled pineapple and kiwi juice is delicious and alcohol-free).
Italian: Pranzo d’acqua fa volti sghembi (A lunch of water makes twisted faces).
David Wilson,
Newcastle upon Tyne
