Crime

This is a police procedural from 1984 when police attitudes and methods were very different to what we expect today, making it very dated and not in a good way. Annoyingly, the story was unsympathetic and sexist to all the female characters whether adult or child. The tv series starring David Jason as Frost was an accurate portrayal of him working in a general mess and with pockets stuffed with random bits of paper. Jason was able to pull off Wingfield's character who had a funny line for every situation but on the printed page he was less amusing, more smart-mouth. ( )

The misogyny and objectification of most female characters (including a sexually exploited 12 year old who is blamed for her own abuse because she has developed breasts and is judged a 'tart') make it very hard to like the character of Frost or the book as a whole. The writing is technically strong and strikes a good balance between drama and humour but I am reluctant to read any more of the series if this is how Wingfield writes women. ( )

For some reason, my spouse and I started watching A Touch of Frost on BritBox. Well, we'd run out of Midsomer Murders episodes. Anyway, we watched for a bit, and then decided to check out a couple of the books on which the series was loosely patterned.

So, in this book, Inspector Frost is saddled with the Chief Constable's nephew as his side kick. The nephew has an attitude.

Among other things, they have to figure out what happened to a young girl, Tracey, who didn't make it home from Sunday School. Her mother, who makes her living as a "woman of pleasure", had a late client who kept her from getting down to Sunday School to fetch Tracey. Then too, they find a skeleton in the woods with a "third eye" and a severed arm, the arm attached to an empty cash box. The skeleton had been there for some 30 years. Well, they deal with a crazy cat lady, who also works as a clairvoyant, a vicar who has a secret room full of porn and pictures of naked young girls, an elderly, impoverished bank manager, and so forth.

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This is the first in the Inspector Frost detective series. It is the story of a missing child. I have read a number of detective series and was looking forward to a new one, but that will not happen with this series. I didn't get very far into the book because i disliked the dialogue. Found it ridiculous. Gave it two stars. ( )