Frost at Christmas

Frost, assisted and annoyed by his new sidekick, is assigned to the disappearance of a prostitute's daughter and with characteristic rashness he launches into the case. But when they unearth an ancient skeleton and the fresh corpse of a bank employee turns up, Frost is also drawn into an unsolved bank robbery from an almost forgotten past. His method - to risk first his career, and then his life...

'Affecting, frightening, and, especially in Frost's dialogue, extremely amusing' Listener

Ten days to Christmas and Tracey Uphill, aged eight, hasn't come home from Sunday school.Her mother, a pretty young prostitute, is desperate.Enter Detective Inspector Jack Frost, sloppy, scruffy and insubordinate.To help him investigate the case of the missing child, Frost has been assigned a new sidekick, the Chief Constable's nephew.Fresh to provincial Denton in an oversmart suit, Detective Constable Clive Barnard is an easy target for Frost's withering satire.

Assisted and annoyed by Barnard, Frost, complete with a store of tasteless anecdotes to fit every occasion, proceeds with the investigation in typically unorthodox style.After he's consulted a local witch, Dead Man's Hollow yields up a skeleton.Frost finds himself drawn into an unsolved crime from the past and risks not only his career, but also his life...

'A crisp, confident, ripely-characterized novel; exciting, ingenious, roundly satisfying’Literary Review