A Touch of Frost — R.D. Wingfield

DETECTIVE INSPECTOR JACK FROST
Jack Frost, Denton Division, is not beloved by his superiors. In fact, he's something of a pain in the brass: unkempt and unruly, with a taste for crude humor and a tendency to cut corners. They'd like nothing better than to bounce him from the department. The only problem is, Frost's the one D.I. who, by hook or by crook, always seems to find a way to get the job done....

Though he's officially on duty, Frost is looking for the nearest opportunity to sneak off to the departmental booze-up celebrating a colleague's retirement. But the normally sleepy town of Denton is not cooperating this cold autumn night, leaving Frost wading in his best suit through a flooded public rest room to investigate a junkie's death. And from there, things start to go seriously downhill, as Frost winds up stalking a runaway teenager; a one-man burglary wave; a local Member of Parliament's bad seed son turned hit-and-run driver; and the tabloids' new criminal darling, the Hooded Terror -- who is about to strike his next victim....