This is a critical study of the great British man of letters, G.K. Chesterton, with chapters devoted to the novels, stories, and essays that explore the darker fringes of his wild imagination. "Everything is different in the dark," wrote Chesterton; "perhaps you don't know how terrible a truth that is."

Chesterton's frequent use of the image and theme of "gargoyles" provides the thematic structure of the book. It covers the detective stories of Father Brown and others, the locked rooms and miracle crimes that appear in his writing, his status as a science fiction writer, and the riddles and paradoxes of three works—Job, The Man Who Was Thursday, and the play, The Surprise. This volume also includes an interlude about Chesterton and Jorge Luis Borges and a robust appendix including interviews about the formation of Ignatius Press's Collected Chesterton.