Ice in the Bedroom

First edition (US)

Ice in the Bedroom is a novel by P.G. Wodehouse, first published as a book in the United States (where the title was The Ice in the Bedroom) on February 2, 1961 by Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York, and in the United Kingdom on October 15, 1961 by Herbert Jenkins, London.^[1]

The story was originally published, in a condensed version, in the November 5, 1960, issue of the Toronto Star Weekly.

It features several Wodehouse characters from earlier books, including Drones Freddie Widgeon and Oofy Prosser, and the trio of criminals, "Chimp" Twist and "Soapy" and "Dolly" Molloy.

The novel has two intertwined sub-plots. Freddie Widgeon, who wishes to marry Sally Foster, is seeking to escape from a dull job in a London office to become the manager of a coffee plantation in Kenya. Meanwhile, in the normally quiet suburb of Valley Fields, where Freddie is living, a cache of jewellery, hidden in the home of Freddie's neighbour, is attracting the attention of a small gang of petty criminals.

The story is essentially a re-working of Sam the Sudden (1925), which was also set in the fictional Valley Fields, had a sub-plot in which the same three crooks were hunting for hidden treasure, and entwined this with a romantic sub-plot.

References

External links

• The Russian Wodehouse Society's page, with a list of characters