Will One Be Called “An Early Frost”?

Two years after the death of British crime novelist R.D. Wingfield, who created the abrasive but popular series character Detective Inspector William Edward “Jack” Frost of Denton C.I.D., word arrives that Frost is planning a return:

Two ‘prequels’ set in the 1970s will chart Frost’s early career in a two-book deal commissioned by UK publisher Transworld from “James Henry,” the pen-name adopted by the writing partnership of James Gurbutt (himself an associate with Wingfield’s original publisher, Constable) and Henry Sutton, who teaches creative writing at the University of East Anglia.

The first of the Frost prequels is expected to be published in 2011. The last Frost novel, A Killing Frost, was published posthumously in 2008.

(Hat tip to Mike Ripley.)