Night Frost - By R. D. Wingfield

About the Author

After a successful career writing for radio, R.D. Wingfield turned his attention to fiction and created the character DI Jack Frost, who has featured in six novels. The series has been adapted for television as the perennially popular A Touch of Frost starring David Jason.

R.D. Wingfield died in 2007. His final book, A Killing Frost, is out now.

DON’T MISS THE OTHER TITLES IN THE DI JACK FROST SERIES

A TOUCH OF FROST

A wealthy businessman’s daughter is missing, the son of an MP is suspected of a hit-and-run and a multiple rapist is on the loose . . .

‘What impresses most is the extraordinarily vivid interplay between the police characters. Frost himself is splendidly drawn’ The Times

‘A funny, frantic, utterly refreshing brew’ Sunday Telegraph

FROST AT CHRISTMAS

Ten days before Christmas a child goes missing. Then Dead Man’s Hollow yields up a skeleton . . .

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

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

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HARD FROST

One boy is found dead, another is missing and a psychopath is on the rampage. Then a supermarket MD is sent a ransom demand . . .

‘Crime pick of the year. Darker, funnier and more violent than the television adaptation, but just as high quality’ Daily Telegraph

‘Inspector Jack Frost (is) deplorable yet funny, a comic monster on the side of the angels’ Guardian

WINTER FROST

A serial killer is murdering local prostitutes, a man uncovers a skeleton in his garden and armed robbers hit the local minimart . . .

‘Frost is a splendid creation, a cross between Rumpole and Colombo’ The Times

‘If you enjoy crime fiction at all, read this. If you’ve never read a crime novel in your life, start with this one’ Morning Star

A KILLING FROST

A macabre discovery in Denton woods, two young girls missing and a supermarket reporting poisoned stock, just as DI Jack Frost meets his nemesis . . .

‘Another jam-packed, thrilling outing for Wingfield’s DI Jack Frost. With more twists than a bucket of eels, this is a fitting climax to an incredible series’ STUART MACBRIDE

Sunday

The old lady’s name was Mrs Haynes – Mary Haynes, but no-one had called her Mary for years, not since her husband died. She was seventy-eight years old and she stood on the doorstep trembling with fear.

She had just come back from the churchyard. She went there every Sunday, weather permitting, to tidy up her husband’s grave and put fresh flowers in the cut glass vase that had once stood on the dark oak sideboard they had bought the first year they were married and which was now in the unused back room. Today, when she reached the churchyard the vicar was waiting for her, his face grim. ‘I’m afraid you must prepare yourself for a shock, Mrs Haynes.’

When she saw what they had done to the grave she thought she was going to pass out. The headstone she had saved for so carefully was desecrated with purple painted graffiti. A crudely drawn skull and crossbones and words she couldn’t bring herself to repeat defaced her husband’s name. The vase had been hurled against the headstone and smashed to pieces.

The vicar was most sympathetic. He and his curate had been comforting distraught mourners all day. Vandals had left a trail of broken headstones, graffiti and strewn wreaths in a mindless moronic orgy of destruction. The police had been informed, he assured her, and had promised that the cemetery would be kept under constant observation in the hope of catching the perpetrators in the act.

She couldn’t remember the journey home, her mind in a whirl at what had happened. Such a relief to creak open the front gate. But at the tiny porch another shock. As she fumbled in her purse for the key she noticed that the porch doormat had been moved. She was ever so careful how she replaced it when she hid the spare door key and there was no doubt it had been moved.

Hands shaking, she lifted the corner of the mat. The key wasn’t there. Someone had taken it. Perhaps even used it to get inside. She stepped back and looked up at the house. Was it her imagination, or had the bedroom curtains shivered as if someone had just twitched them shut?

Her gloved hand clutched her chest to hold the hurt of her fluttering heart. She needed help. Anyone’s help. A light was on next door where that awful young man with the motor bike lived. She staggered across and pressed the door bell. She