Midsomer Murders

Villagers of Midsomer Barton are all set to celebrate Oak Apple Week, especially as the carnival queen event is set to return after an eight year absence. Yet the body of the mother of a deceased, one-time carnival queen, found in a stream, looks set to spoil things, as Barnaby and Jones find themselves digging up the past. From familiar faces, to drunken boasts and hidden obessions, it slowly becomes clear that the mother's daughter might be the key to solving the murder, when more deaths follow.

Wealthy, eccentric and obese aristocrat Freddy Butler drops dead, shortly after gathering all three of his wives at Haddington Hall to make an announcement. Although George Bullard is adamant his death is from natural causes, the case is far from simple when Freddy's solicitor is deliberately killed in a house fire shortly afterwards and Freddy's will goes missing. Barnaby and Jones find themselves investigating the extended Butler family, uncovering hidden secrets, illegitimate children and elusive treasure in the process.

Martin Barrett, a local council clerk living in Midsomer Worthy, is murdered during the night by shotgun, prompting Barnaby and Jones to find a motive for his murder. When they discover that Barrett was an expert blackmailer, his victims become prime suspects for his death - from a local pub landlord, a cleaner, a prominent member of the police board, to a former marine geologist. As they investigate, finding themselves drawn to the seaside, they slowly uncover deception, theft, attempted blackmail and hatred.

In the village of Broughton, a ninety-year-old battle of the sexes has often occurred, with men trying to oppose an event that the women have managed to successfully hold without interruption, until it culminates with casualties on both sides - Mildred Danvers, an elderly woman who had returned on the day of a funeral and poisoned in her hotel room, and Rev. Anthony Gant, shot during a major event being held in the village green, in view of many. It soon becomes clear someone may have wished to kill both to cover up a dark truth, and soon Barnaby has to figure out who amongst the village wanted both dead, complicated further when Gant's curate is murdered next.

Villagers in Elverton-cum-Latterly are up in arms and divided, over the building of a supermarket. Things soon come to a head when independent environmental supervisor, Frank Hopkirk, is found stabbed to death at a Jubb's Timber Yard, the site of the new supermarket, by a pair of children. When Barnaby and Jones investigate to determine who wanted Hopkirk dead, they find out that he secretly came to the village under various aliases for sexual rendezvous with various women in fantasy role-playing scenarios, and that he had been making further investigations on the future development site and having doubts over claims it was contaminated. Either someone didn't like his investigations, or someone didn't like his sexual appetite, but either way, Barnaby finds himself investigating lies and more to uncover the truth.

Barnaby and DC Ben Jones (Jason Hughes) find themselves attempting to unravel the deaths of a choir tenor, and later a bird watcher, before more murders occur. The case is complicated by a rivalry between the Midsomer Worthy and Aston Wherry choirs, due to compete in an upcoming competition, and suspicions that an art scam is to be conducted, and soon Barnaby and Jones become concerned about a local woman, who they fear may become a victim herself. Particularly when it becomes clear the bird watcher had been photographing suspicious activity of late.

A few months ago, Annie Woodrow was arrested, accused of murdering her friend, Frances Trevelyan, on the motive of wanting Frances' husband. Her time in court has come, but DCI Barnaby is certain she still is holding things back in regards to the murder, and decides to monitor the trial. Yet a chance remark by Frances' youngest daughter, and a meeting with an old friend and psychiatrist, makes him begin to doubt the evidence for her conviction. Soon he and DC Jones, awaiting news of his promotion to DS, find themselves reinvestigating the case, and it soon becomes clear that they may have missed details that could implicate another in the murder.