Hard Frost

R. D. Wingfield

Book 4 of Jack Frost

Language: English

Publisher: Bantam

Published: Sep 1, 1995

Description:

Detective Inspector Jack Frost, Denton Division,  is not beloved by his superiors. In fact, he's  something of a pain in the brass: unkempt and unruly,  with a taste for crude humor and a tendency to cut  corners. They'd like nothing better than to bounce  him from the department. The only problem is,  Frost's the one D.I. who, by hook  or by crook, always seems to find a way to get the  job done. It's a high price to pay for a pak of  smokes when Frost interrupts his vacation to filch  some of Commander Mullett's cigarettes and finds  himself pressed into emergency duty. Denton Division  is shorthanded after a car crash involving several  tipsy high-ranking cops, and on Guy Fawkes night  there's more mischief abroad than just a few  children making the rounds begging for pennies and  lighting firecrackers. In the next few days, Frost will  deal with a parade of miscreants, including a  blackmailer, a shifty businessman, a not-so-greiving  widow, a sexual pervert or two, a crazed housewife,  and a cold-blooded kidnapper. The clock is  ticking, and Frost is perilously short of clues...

From Library Journal

Wingfield writes the mystery/police procedural series featuring Detective Inspector Jack Frost, dramatized for television in the series A Touch of Frost (seen in America on the Arts & Entertainment cable channel). This novel, Wingfield's fourth book in the series, is read by British actor and announcer Robin Browne, who skillfully imitates, for the benefit of the television series' fans, the voice and accents of actor David Jason, who portrays Frost on TV. The novel finds the insubordinate, coarse, yet intuitive Frost stumbling from crisis to crisis with a caseload that simultaneously includes the murder of a burglar-blackmailer, a child-murder and related child-abduction, the kidnapping and ransom of a local teenager, a child-stabbing pervert, and the murder of three children by their unbalanced mother, all while under severe time constraints and while dealing with personnel pressures within the department. The portrayal of the Denton police force, especially the dialog and interplay among characters, rings true, depressingly so at times. The novel is essential for all mystery collections.AKristen L. Smith, Loras Coll. Lib., Dubuque, IA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"What impresses me most is the extraordinarily  vivid interplay between the police characters. Frost  himself is splendidly drawn." -- The  Times, London.