Book info

• Title Morning Frost
• Author James Henry
• Year 2013
• Genre Mystery

5 October 1982. It's been one of the worst days of Detective Sergeant Jack Frost’s life. He has buried his wife Mary, and must now endure the wake, attended by all of Denton’s finest. All, that is, apart from DC Sue Clark, who spends the night pursuing a bogus tip-off, before being summoned to the discovery of a human hand. And things get worse. Local entrepreneur Harry Baskin is shot outside his club, an off-licence is set on fire and a famous painting goes missing. As the week goes on, a cyclist is found dead in suspicious circumstances, and the arsonist strikes again. Frost is on the case, but another disaster – one he is entirely unprepared for – is about to strike . . .

Thoughts

I’ve still got mixed feelings about these sequel/prequel Detective Frost books, written to follow the six original R. D. Wingfield novels. They don’t quite have the same feel to them, but it’s nice to dip into this world every now and then. There was a lot more personal stuff in this one, as it kicks off with the funeral of Frost’s wife, and deals with a lot of the fallout from that. Also his colleagues are having their own issues… I was confused about Simms, because there was that prequel problem of it not fitting with what I know from the original series… but that was resolved quite quickly, so no complaints.

Rating: 3 / 5