Season 7 begins just before Christmas. Frost doesn't seem to have too many things planned for the holidays, which is just as well, as a police corruption scandal seems to be brewing. A crime squad detective is found shot, and a large sum of cash is found in his car. Everything points to his being shot by someone he knew, and the fact that he was participating in an undercover operation to net international car thieves just adds to the number of suspects. Frost is quick to try and follow the corruption angle, but his ever-interfering boss, Superintendent Mullett is quite determined to pull him off the case. In the meantime, a worker at the local power station falls to his death, buried by tons of coal, on the same day that his house is vandalized. As Frost tells his partner later on, "I don't like coincidences like this". The great thing about this episode is that it is very hard to guess anything from the actions of each of the suspects in the detective's murder. In fact, the ones that seemed most likely to be guilty are cleared pretty early on. The detective's wife and his colleagues on the police force both seem beyond reproach - or are they?

Frost's personal life comes into focus this season, as he meets up with an old flame who has recently moved back to Denton. As the pair struggle to meet despite their busy careers, we see a softer, more reflective side of Frost. Unlike another modern TV detective, Inspector Morse, Frost doesn't spend much time in introspection, but the little touches of humanity added to his character only make the audience invest more in the series. Season 8 also brings Frost's past into sharp focus, as a young woman turns up on his door-step claiming to be his daughter. The Inspector's complicated reaction to the situation - and Jason's nuanced acting - makes the series look like a serious drama. But again, because there is only a limited amount of time spent on this and even that is done with a dash of humor, it is not at all tedious, and in fact, adds to our rapport with Frost's character.

The two main stories that make up Season 8 are both pretty gruesome. In the first, a woman's body is found spread over the railroad tracks and her amputated hand is found at a distance from the rest of the body. Frost has a new partner assigned to him, a war veteran named Reid who seems to be a good detective but an out-of-control man in his private life. Reid's first action on the job is to save Frost from an oncoming train when they arrive at the tracks to investigate the murder. However, Frost soon finds that Reid has a history of substance abuse, and by then middle of the story, when Reid is found beaten up in a public toilet, it's not clear whether he was dabbling in drugs or investigating a case of counterfeit cigarettes. Meanwhile a highly regarded surgeon goes missing from the local hospital, and since almost everyone seems to have hated her, there is no dearth of suspects. But to investigate a murder, Frost and his partner first need to find the body. A complaint from neighbors leads to the discovery of the body, and the evidence points to a man whose son died after an operation. Like in the previous season, the resolution of this crime is not fleshed out in detail. Nevertheless, there has been enough going on throughout the season - including a slightly weak plotline involving a man impersonating Frost who is harassing local women - that you don't feel shortchanged.

Parama Chaudhury is a writer and economics professor living in New England.

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