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Detective Inspector Jack frost is back solving murders and crime in the small town of Denton, England.

A Touch of Frost Season 14 has Detective Inspector Jack Frost (David Jason) solving crime in three episodes of the successful British crime series. In the first episode, Mind Games, a murderer suspected of killing two young teenage girls (one of the girls’ bodies was never found) is released from prison. The murderer has confessed, but never gave the location of the second girl. The towns people are shocked that he has chosen to move back into his family home and they go out of their way to shun him. His only ally is a local vicar who helps him out when he is discriminated against and when he is punched in church by the father of one of the victims. Then, the body of the murdered girl is discovered and Frost must re investigate the murders. We soon find that the right questions weren’t asked and why the body was not found sooner when that area was extensively searched 20 years ago when the crime first took place.

The second episode is, for some reason, on a separate disk, but deals with Frost having to work with a colleague (Cherie Lunghi) who once got him suspended. In this episode, Dead End, two adults working on a bus are kidnapped and one of them, the driver, was recently released from prison after having accidentally killed two people. Frost interviews the victims’ family for clues as to where the two missing people might be. One of the kidnapped people is a diabetic who desperately needs her insulin. Meanwhile, Det. Frost is also trying to figure out who killed a professional party clown.

In the third episode, In the Public Interest, a rich mogul, James Callum (Adrain Lukis), sets his sights on taken over the small town of Denton in England. He uses a smear campaign to take over an area to build his empire. Rumors fly and hurt reputations and soon a young woman affiliated with Callum ends up dead. Callum and the woman had been having an affair and Callum’s partner is none too happy about it although doesn’t want to rock the boat knowing her relationship with him has its perks. Det. Frost investigates the murder of the woman and finds a surprising twist in who the killer turns out to be.

Although I was not familiar with this series before, it is understandable why it is so popular in Britain. Each show is thoughtfully written with attention given not just to the murder suspects, but to the victims’ families as well. David Jason is excellent as the surly detective and his long-time friend and colleague, George Toolan (John Lyons) is phenomenal. There were times I had to remind myself that Lyons was an actor and not a real life detective.

Unlike many detective shows and murder mystery dramas, I had difficulty figuring out who the killers were in two of the three episodes. Usually I can call the culprit out pretty fast, but I was unable to figure out most of the guilty parties in these shows. This is a great series with wonderful writing (the Brits do mysteries better than anyone else) and great acting. A Touch of Frost is is an excellent series which fans of Law and Order, Murder, She Wrote, Matlock and C.S.I. would enjoy.

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