A Killing Frost, R.D. Wingfield

Confession up front - I don't read these books for their plots, their scenarios or even in an attempt to find the flaws in the procedural elements. I read them because I love Frost, Mullet, George Toolan, Ernie Trigg and the ever changing assortment of DS's that come and go in Frost's world. I love Denton, (wouldn't want to live there - the constant crime waves would do your head in after a while), but really, the point of the Frost books for me, at least, is more about time with old friends than it is necessarily about strong police procedurals.

I guess I should also admit that it's now pretty well impossible to read a Frost book without seeing and hearing David Jason in the title role from the TV series, which is possibly also why I don't see some personality characteristics that other readers often comment on. I "see" the dialogue with a twinkle in the eye, with a strong coating of irony or self-deprecation. I hear a quintessentially tongue in cheek bit of a rogue policeman with a way of needling away at a case until it gets solved. Regardless of the resourcing problems, regardless of how much he annoys the upper echelons, and how many favours he calls in from his colleagues.

I realise there is a distinct possibility that this could be seen as very odd, as often the cases are violent, and there is always a lot of simultaneous crime going on in these books, but I really do find the Frost series increasingly a bit of a comfort read. Not just because Frost is a copper who keeps going until everything's solved, not just because he's a copper who you'd trust to do the right thing, but also because there's something wonderfully English, something very realistic about the way that the cases are portrayed, the juggling that goes on everyday in an under-resourced, overworked and extremely human police force.