Brrrrr-ace Yourself

Ahead of the release next month, in Great Britain, of First Frost (Bantam), a prequel to R.D. Wingfield’s acclaimed Inspector Jack Frost series--though not composed by the late author--UK comics expert Steve Holland has posted a gallery of seasonally appropriate covers from the Frost series. Click here to enjoy them.

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.)

Warm Memories of Frost

While we await, with bated breath, the publication of Mike Ripley’s May “Getting Away with Murder” column in Shots, the author-critic delivers a fine appreciation in that same Webzine of his friend and fellow novelist Rodney “R.D.” Wingfield, who died of cancer last August at age 79. Arguably the most interesting part of Ripley’s encomium is his account of the process by which actor David Jason became Wingfield’s Detective Inspector William Edward “Jack” Frost on television, and the novelist’s reaction to that portrayal:

In 1992, there were two undisputed super stars of British television. One was John Thaw, most famously for Inspector Morse, and the other was David Jason who, after a string of comedy dramas could virtually do anything he wanted. Whilst searching for a new vehicle for his talents, Jason, or so the story goes, toyed with the idea of a detective character, not surprisingly as “cop shows” were all the rage.

According to Richard Bates, David Jason went on a scuba-diving holiday with three detective novels in his luggage. In some versions of the story, one of the three was one of my titles, Angel Hunt, but I’ve never really believed that. One of them certainly was A Touch of Frost and it was the one David Jason liked. After radio and novels, Inspector Frost was to become a household name thanks to television.

Although a great popular success, there was one viewer (among the millions) who remained unimpressed--Rodney Wingfield. He once told me: “I have nothing against David Jason as Frost at all, he just isn’t my Frost” and, legend has it, he was ferociously critical of the pilot episode script. After that pilot episode aired in December 1992, Rodney claimed never to have watched another episode and he declined to appear on ITV’s 2006 Super Sleuths, a retrospective appreciation of television detectives. He would say that he would only know that a new series was in the offing by watching TV award shows to see if David Jason had a moustache or not.

For those who don’t know, Wingfield’s last Frost novel, A Killing Frost, was published recently in Britain. I’ve only just started reading the book, so was fascinated to discover Ripley’s history of that series and his recollections of its author.

The Shots tribute can be found here.

Farewell to Rodney

Earlier this week, Essex-based crime writer Mike Ripley (creator of cab-driving P.I. Fitzroy Maclean Angel) brought the sad news that Rodney D. Wingfield, another Essex man and the author of the Jack Frost mysteries, had died. Not long afterward, Scottish writer Stuart MacBride told us how sad he was to hear of Wingfield’s passing after a long and very private bout with cancer. Later in the week, I had a chance to speak with Ripley, and I could see how devastated he was by the loss of his old colleague.

It was only right that Ripley should have written Wingfield’s obituary, which appears in today’s edition of The Guardian. After recapping the author’s hesitancy about a television adaptation of his Frost novels, starring David Jason, Ripley gives a bit of background on Wingfield and his fiction:

Born in Hackney, Rodney attended the Coopers Company school in the East End and was, along with the entire school, evacuated to Frome in Somerset during the second world war. After junior office jobs with a furniture company and in the Port of London docks, he became a clerk in the sales offices of the Fina oil company, while devoting his spare time to writing short, one or two-act plays.

In 1968, BBC Radio Drama bought his 45-minute play Compensating Error, and swiftly commissioned two more. After three well-received broadcasts, Rodney gave up the office job and for two decades provided BBC radio with a steady stream of 45- or 60-minute dramas, noted for clever plot twists and surprise endings. He also tried his hand at pure comedy, writing a radio series for Kenneth Williams (obituary, April 16 1988) in the role of a secret agent.

But it was Rodney’s reputation as a craftsman of mystery stories featuring small-time criminals and multiple plot lines that brought him to the attention of publishers Macmillan. In 1972, they offered him a £50 “non-returnable” advance for a crime novel. Rodney, who was to say later that he had been spurred on by the word “non-returnable”, duly obliged with Frost at Christmas, which Macmillan promptly rejected.

Loathe to abandon his laconic, chainsmoking detective, Jack Frost, Rodney recycled the character into his radio work in the play Three Days of Frost in 1977, with Ronnie Barker (obituary, October 5 2005) pencilled in for the lead. Television commitments meant that Barker was unavailable, so the role of Frost was taken by Leslie Sands (obituary, May 23 2001), whose performance was to remain Rodney’s favourite.

It took 12 years for Frost at Christmas to be published, as it eventually was in Canada. And by then, Ripley explains, “Rodney had used the character in another radio play, A Touch of Frost, which he turned into a second novel in 1990. There followed Night Frost (1992), Hard Frost (1995) and Winter Frost (1999), though Rodney described himself as “a reluctant author ... thoroughly disenchanted with the grind of writing full-length novels.” (A sixth entry in the Jack Frost series, A Killing Frost, will be published posthumously in Great Britain next spring.)

Having known Wingfield well, Ripley reveals in his obit a picture of the author who, to most other people, seemed an eccentric recluse:

A very private man, [Wingfield] avoided the usual round of publishing and show business parties, choosing to keep in touch with friends and colleagues by regular, often scurrilous, faxes and then emails. He was rarely photographed, and an Italian edition of one of the Frost books, following a mix up in translation, carried an author photograph on the jacket of Kenneth Williams.

Rodney had a stubborn streak, and relations with publishers and BBC radio producers could be strained. After one dispute with the BBC in 1984, he submitted the highly regarded six-part serial The Killing Season under the name Arthur Jefferson (the real name of Stan Laurel). His last broadcast play was Hate Mail in 1988, after which the Frost novels occupied him completely.

You’ll find Ripley’s full tribute to R.D. Wingfield here. And to read the London Times obituary of the author, click here.

A Late Frost

British critic and author Mike Ripley sends some very sad news our way: Rodney D. Wingfield, the former oil company salesman who created the series character Detective Inspector William Edward “Jack” Frost of Denton C.I.D., “died at his home in Essex, England, last night. Rodney was 79 and had been fighting cancer very privately for some years.” Ripley continues:

An established writer of radio plays, Rodney developed his radio character, Inspector Jack Frost, into the novel Frost at Christmas during the 1970s, though it took almost 12 years to find a publisher. Four more novels and a hugely popular TV series, starring Sir David Jason, followed.

Shortly before his final illness, Rodney, who wrote as R.D. Wingfield, completed the sixth in the series, Killing Frost, which will be published posthumously in the UK in the spring of 2008.

We offer our condolences to Wingfield’s family.

READ MORE: “A Tribute to R.D. Wingfield,” by Stuart
MacBride (Halfhead).