The Lovely Shall Be Choosers - Robert Frost

Advantages: Great police story, which brings the character of Jack Frost even larger than life, multiple plots makes for fast, frenetic pace
Disadvantages: Frost may be too vulgar in the book for some people used to the TV series

...‘Night Frost’ by R. D. Wingfield is one of a series of novels featuring Inspector Jack Frost, who most of us associate with the TV series, ‘A Touch of Frost’, played by the wonderfully idiosyncratic David Jason. If you love the series, then you really should try and read one of Wingfield’s novels, as they have all been adapted into episodes for the show, and thus are likely to be instantly familiar to you. See if you can recognize the plot here. This book focuses on three main plots. Frost and the rest of Denton station are facing a crisis caused by a local flu epidemic, and with Inspector Allen down, Frost is in charge of running the detective division, with his new sidekick, Sergeant Gilmore, an ambitious young policeman, newly moved form London. Expecting to be working alongside the efficient Allen, he... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Swashbuckling heroic cheesy fun, fluid reading at times, its Conan NOT Arnold!
Disadvantages: Politically incorrect in parts, though not a major fault it does dampen it somewhat.

...- He gets taken prisoner by Queen Belit while at sea, she then proceeds to appoint him as her joint king, I assume through becoming smitten by his lovely eyes …. Belit - 'Take me and crush me with your fierce love, go with me to the ends of the earth and the ends of the sea! I am a queen by fire and steel and slaughter - be thou my king?' ( I had to giggle at this, who the hell could keep a straight face when this has been directed at you!!!! ) Conan - 'Ummm kkk' * raises eyebrow * 'Sure thing.' Conan didn't actually say that line but you get the picture! So off he sets for more sex and slaying, yet this time on a boat, well you got to have a change of scenery once in a while. The Vale of Lost women - I shall make a note of saying that these stories should be taken with a pinch of realism. Howard lived and died in good old Texas... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: Very funny, and incredibly quirky characters
Disadvantages: Possibly too strange for many people

...Ah, Robert Rankin... Definitely one of my favourite authors, and certainly one of the, shall we say, quirkiest? I would love to hand this to an American and see how much of it they got. Set in Rankin's beloved Brentford, this story concerns the rise to power of, well, the Antipope (bet you didn't see that coming?). The two main characters and lovable layabouts, Pooley and Omally (these two make appearences in many of Rankin's books), are more concerned with getting drunk than doing anything like saving the world from the Antipope. The rest of the cast of characters are all equally strange, from Neville the full time part-time barman, to Norman, grocer and part-time inventor. The humour is excellent, if liable to be lost on non-British readers, and the writing very good. If you want to read some Rankin, then this is the book you should... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful