Joseph Bottum today reprinted a July, 2000 article in which he called for a revival of Melville Davisson Post’s Uncle Abner stories:
In the deliberate tone of the stories and the matching of the writing’s pitch to its subject, in the uniting of the religious element with the detective’s action and the sense of good’s battle against evil in the solution of a crime, only G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown belongs beside Melville Davisson Post’s Uncle Abner.
I’ve never read Post; perhaps I will.
Bottum’s article is outdated in one respect: it’s not hard to find Uncle Abner in 2007. Bottum himself includes a link to amazon.com, where Uncle Abner, Master of Mysteries is listed as “in stock.” If you’re broke or impatient, you can read the collection online, courtesy of Project Gutenberg.