I'm another person who "read" this book by listening to BJ Harrison's Classic Tales podcast. Without Harrison I probably would never have gotten through it, based on my experience with the Man Who WasThursday, which I stopped after a chapter or two. Chesterton is a pretty decent writer, but like many political/ideological writers (Orwell being an exception) he is way too didactic. His moral perspective (in this case Catholicism and hyper nationalism) often turns the storyline juvenile, over-wrought and maudlin. After a couple of the stories, figuring out the mystery isn't all that difficult - Chesterton tends to re-use the same plot twists each time. The last in the series is almost unbearably awful and embarrassing. Fortunately, Harrison carried me through it to the end. So, as in the HP series, if you really are interested, get the audio book from Harrison.

PS normally xenophobia in these classic tales doesn't bother me at all - different times, different perspectives. But precisely because in this book it was so obviously an expression of Chesterton's ideology, I found it very jarring and off-putting. I know Chesterton was anti-fascist and not a bad man, but I don't find him the least bit admirable.