Tue 20 Oct 2009
A Review by Geoff Bradley: R. D. WINGFIELD – Frost at Christmas.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[6] Comments
R. D. [RODNEY] WINGFIELD – Frost at Christmas. PaperJacks, Canada, paperback original, 1984; 2nd printing, 1987. Constable, UK, hardcover, 1989. Bantam, US, pb, 1995.
For a lover of detective stories I have to admit that I haven’t kept up with present day (or, at any rate, fairly recent) authors. This is not a plan, but a function of a slow reading rate and other things demanding attention.
I have confessed several times to a close friend about not reading Wingfield, and he has always told me that I should. Of course I have watched and enjoyed all the episodes of the TV series but was aware that that series was not favoured by the author himself.
I actually bought this paperback edition for 10 cents at Haslam’s bookstore in St Petersburg, Florida, on a visit in the early 1990s and finally I’ve read it.
When the smoothly efficient Inspector Allen is taken ill, Frost has to take on the search for a missing 8-year-old girl, and his investigation keeps blundering into other cases, including a 32-year-old case of the murder of a bank worker and a missing £20.000.
The story is told is short pithy passages and often from the viewpoint of Detective Constable Clive Barnard, the Chief Constable’s nephew who had been assigned to Denton C.I.D. for his first appointment and was accompanying Frost in his investigations.
I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the book for a while and the first 100 pages shot by. After that, familiarity maybe set in for a while, but I still happily turned the pages, though without quite the same eagerness, until the end, 184 pages later. Still, overall it was an enjoyable read, and I will look out for a cheap copy of the second in the series, A Touch of Frost.
The Detective Inspector Jack Edward Frost series —
Frost at Christmas (1984)
A Touch of Frost (1987)
Night Frost (1992)
Hard Frost (1995)
Winter Frost (1999)
A Killing Frost (2008)
October 20th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
I know it isn’t fair, but I could never watch Frost because I always saw Jason as Granville, the hapless errand boy to Ronnie Barker’s grocer Arkwright in Open All Hours the BBC sitcom.
Haven’t read the Frost books, which doesn’t mean I shouldn’t.
Constable Clive Barker. Ironic that. I wonder of Wingfield ever did anything with the coincidence.
October 20th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
I’ll have to ask Geoff about that. In the TV series, Frost’s assistant is DC Clive Barnard, not Barker. It may be a slip of the finger.
In any case, what’s sort of unique, again as far as the TV series is concerned, is that Frost’s sidekick changes from episode to episode. Barnard appears from time to time, but not on a regular basis.
October 21st, 2009 at 7:25 am
A Touch of Frost is one of the very best British mystery drama series. I’ve seen David Jason in the comedies Open All Hours and Only Fools and Horses and I would have to say he is completely different as the depressed, elderly, grouchy, and insubordinate inspector. This is one of the signs of an excellent actor. He can star as a complete fool in a comedy and still create a believable role in a mystery drama. If you like Inspector Morse, Wire in the Blood, Touch of Evil, Taggert, then by all means give A Touch of Frost a viewing.
October 21st, 2009 at 12:05 pm
David —
Geoff admits that the slip-up was his. It’s Clive Barnard, not Barker, and I’ve fixed the review so it reads correctly now. He says: “As I was typing, the author’s name must have flashed into my mind.”
I also asked him if by chance he’d happened to pick up a copy of the first printing of the PaperJacks edition, which is quite scarce and is worth a small amount of money. No such luck:
“It is the Paperjacks edition but the second printing, I’m afraid, and a tatty copy at that.”
Walker —
I imagine that authors are awfully tough to please when it comes to casting actor to play their characters, but Wingfield especially went on record as saying that David Jason was not his idea of Frost at all. (He was quite careful to add that he had no intention of insulting Jason in saying so.)
I’ve not seen any of the series yet, but I’ve read one of the books, and Jason certainly looks the part to me. Have you read any of the books to be able to say whether or not Jason feels right as Frost to you?
— Steve
October 21st, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Thanks for straightening out the Barker thing.
As for Jason, I meant no comment on his skills as an actor, but Open All Hours was repeated endlessly on the PBS station out of Dallas, and by the time Frost came along Jason was so indelibly imprinted as the hapless character from that and other Britcoms that it was a difficult transition for me to make. Not his fault, strictly a trick of my own mind.
And to be fair I just didn’t get into A Touch of Frost as I have other series, and so Jason had a difficult hurdle to get over in my case.
I would likely have had the same problem with Hugh Laurie when he did House, but between all the multiple viewings of Blackadder and Jeeves and Wooster I had seen him in several dramatic roles, and his House only vaguely physically resembles his various characters on those series or the sketch comedy he used to do with Stephen Fry. In Jason’s case I had never seen him as anything but Granville or similar characters and the transition was too abrupt.
But again, that’s just me. After all, I kept expecting Carroll O’Connor to tell Howard Rollins to ‘stifle himself’ for at least half of the first season of In the Heat of the Night.
June 3rd, 2014 at 1:22 pm
I have read all Frost books and i love everyone of them, is my favorite inspector and Winfield mi favorite writter, i saw a couple of the tv show series and they were bad all the way, that was not Jack Frost, He was to clean to be him. As always the book is realy great and the movie sucks all the way. How’s that for a centre!!.