Frost at Christmas

By: R. D. Wingfield

Narrated by: Stephen Thorne

With a healthy disregard for rules, he attracts trouble like a magnet. He has a newly assigned apprentice - the unfortunate Detective Constable Barnard - the Chief Constable’s nephew. Fresh to the provinces, just up from London in an embarrassingly flash suit, he’s ripe for Frost’s satire.

©1984 R. D. Wingfield (P)1996 Isis Publishing Ltd

Slow Pace/Good Plot

This story line is great. I love many of the "broken" inspectors in series. Frost is now in my line-up. It was not boring and I felt the narrator was good for the somewhat comic detective and differentiation of male and female characters.
After Dahgleish, Lynley, Gamesh, Dublin Series. Gabriel Allon and Adrian McKinty, to name some faves, this reading was not a "can't-put-it-down" story for me. The ending had a good finish with some surprises...
But the pace was not fast enough to keep my mind off of the things I try to forget while I'm reading (plugged in)!! I will try Frost #2, though :)

Frost at Christmas

Frost at Christmas - Nice crusty detective story. Narration was great, story line easy to follow.

love frost

everything about this series is spot on. tone, humor, humanity. great narrator. very satisfying

A great respite

The wonderfully disrespectful and sometimes crude Frost does it again in this clever story. Not for those who don’t know much about human nature or are easily offended. Adults should enjoy it.

Story good, Narrator the best

Stephen Thorne is THE best narrator. I wish Audible would get all of his Brother Cadfael narrations.

Love it!

Offbeat, dry humor, great looping interlacing stories. I immediately bought all avaliable audio and written. Not typical, but in my opinion very good, almost great.

A great (gritty and fun) start

First, I have to say that for modern sensibilities good old detective inspector Frost might be too much. Readers who want police fiction to be spotless PC will be offended by his unrepentant misogyny. But Frost novels, like most noir fiction, don't need to satisfy our sense of righteousness or leave us with feelings of justice well served. They are meant to entertain and unsettle our perceptions of the world. This novel, the first of a popular series (not the best, though, book 4 is the best), is full of chaotic irreverent humor. Even if it was written in 1984, the contemporary reader probably feels it is much older.
One frequent complain in the reviews is a dialogue where Frost jokingly blames a teen girl from seducing the vicar that secretly takes nude portraits of her. Readers complain Wingfield doesn't take the vicar to justice, or makes them feel better with the character facing dire consequence of his acts. But the best police fiction would never do that.
British crime novels from that time (excluding cozy locked room murders) are as gritty or worse trying to reconstruct a time where society was less than illuminated (any sensible readers should avoid too David Peace's Red-Riding Quartet, even if its a great work of fiction). But even where Peace is dead serious and dark, Wingfield is always tongue-in-cheek awful, dancing on the edge of the abyss with a very savage sense of humor. And most of the reviews that condemn this book for its lack of sensibility, are read straight on, missing the absurd and delightful sense of humor in the prose, the structure and the character. Wingfield, there it's closer to Tom Sharpe than to Elizabeth George.
The Audible edition is a delight to listen. Stephen Thorne (the narrator) really captures the flair needed in the humor and the rhythm.

Excellent!

I so enjoyed listening to the world of Frost and the narration was superb! Give it a go.