Midsomer Murders: Barnaby's Casebook

Case by baffling case, Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby (John Nettles) earns his reputation as a dogged investigator, unflappable in the face of the macabre crimes and eccentric characters of Midsomer County. In this special collection of 17 baffling mysteries from the series' first decade, you'll bid farewell to Detective Sergeant Gavin Troy and welcome to Detective Sergeant Dan Scott. Two documentary extras.

Mysteries previously released on DVD as Sets Four, Six, Seven, and Eight

Tainted Fruit
Barnaby and Troy go out to the village of Midsomer Malham to investigate death threats against Melissa Townsend, the beautiful daughter of the big house. They find that some Midsomer Malham villagers blame Melissa for causing the death of a local poacher by failing to get the leaking roof of his cottage mended.
Then barbiturates are stolen from Raif and Georgina Canning's veterinary surgery and the district nurse is found in her crashed car in a confused state. Barnaby and Troy dash to the Manor, fearing the drugs theft may be connected to the death threats - but they find Melissa is already lying dead by the swimming pool with a syringe in her stomach. Now they have a murderer to find.

Ring Out Your Dead
In the village of Midsomer Wellow, someone is killing off the bellringers of the parish church, in the week before a big bell-ringing competition. One young woman on the team is even shot dead in the churchyard on her wedding day.
Before he can crack the case, Barnaby has to understand the significance of an old killing in the same village in the year 1840, when the Midsomer Wellow Vicar of the day, the Reverend Jonathan Ebbrell, was murdered and thrown down a well by the bellringers of his church. So where are the Ebbrells now?

Murder on St. Malley's Day
The village of Midsomer Parva is dominated by the imposing Devington School - as a seat of learning, Devington may be undistinguished in the great world, but it is socially well-connected and it has economic clout. When the College's Pudding Club sets off a murderous chain of events, ranks begin to close against Barnaby and Troy, and they need inside information to catch the killer. Is it someone from the local village who has a grudge against the school or is the killing motivated by activities at the school?

Market for Murder
In the beautiful village of Midsomer Market someone is killing the members of a ladies' reading circle. Barnaby finds the little society was really a cover for something quite different - the ladies had been operating a secret investment consortium, and there had been fierce disagreements between them about the cashing in of profits. How exactly does Harry Painter, a disgraced currency trader now working in the village as a swimming pool cleaner, fit into the picture, and what exactly is the motive for the murders?

A Worm in the Bud
Susan Bartlett, who was depressed about her infertility, is found dead in a wood - with the appearance that she killed herself. But then Barnaby finds that Susan's emailed suicide note was sent after she was dead. The ensuing murder investigation uncovers old feuds, infidelity and witchcraft.

A Talent for Life
Accusations of unsportsmanlike conduct on the river are bedevilling the Midsomer game fishermen, and Barnaby has to interview elegant widow Isobel Hewitt, a spendthrift, fast-living, Jaguar-driving 75-year-old, when another lady fly-fisher accuses her of a violent assault. Then first Isobel and later her fellow villager Dr Duncan Goff are found on the river-bank with their skulls smashed in, and there is no shortage of suspects - including an antique dealer who apparently specializes in befriending elderly widows.
The picture is confused when one of the suspects, chef-restaurateur Keith Scholey, is found frozen to death in his walk-in deep freeze, with the lock of the door jammed by a nail. Troy has a theory that Scholey was the killer and has made his suicide look like murder, but will that be the end of the affair?

Death and Dreams
Barnaby investigates a death which looks very much like suicide. The dead man was a troubled and depressed gambler on a losing streak, but Barnaby's nose tells him to look for a murderer. During the investigation he recognizes someone from his past in the shape of Dr Jane Moore.

The doctor is a widow who juggles her career with being a mother to her three children. Her 'Care in the Community' approach does not meet with the approval of many of the villagers.

Painted in Blood
Barnaby's wife, Joyce, finds a dead body on the Midsomer Florey village green while taking part in a watercolour painting class, and she recognizes it as the elderly Miss Fairfax.
Barnaby is given the case, then finds himself taken off it and replaced by a team from the National Intelligence Squad, while he is assigned to deal with a missing handbag. However, he continues his investigation into the murder, finding deceit and double-dealing. It appears that 'Miss Fairfax' was not an elderly spinster at all, but a young detective sergeant from the National Intelligence Squad working under cover, and that her colleagues are busy fitting up the village handyman for the murder of an old lady who never was.
He discovers that someone is busy hunting for some five million pounds still missing from an old robbery. In the closing moments, Barnaby has to lock two of the National Intelligence Squad's officers in a bank strong-room, where they are trying to snatch the missing cash, and to arrest the head of the Squad's operational team for the murder under investigation.

A Tale of Two Hamlets
Someone is decimating the ancient Smythe-Webster family of Upper Walden, and the bad blood between the villages of Upper and Lower Walden is renewed with a vengeance.
First, young heart-throb actor Larry Smith (alias Laurence Smythe-Webster) dies in an explosion at a publicity event for a new film. House of Satan is based on a book by a local writer, the late Ellis Bell of Lower Walden - a village whose inhabitants are referred to by its Vicar, the Reverend Simon Smythe-Webster, as "the weasels of the wild wood".
The next to die is Larry's uncle, House of Satan producer Frank Webster (Francis Smythe-Webster), electrocuted to death on his exercise bike. Finally, Barnaby's principal suspect, Danny Pinchel, the family's cook, is drowned in a large bowl of tomato soup...
Barnaby realizes he is dealing with an historic grudge, and he enquires into the family's antecedents.

Birds of Prey
Julian Shepherd, who has most of his money invested in Charles Edmonton's new invention, is found drowned, and there is every appearance that he killed himself due to money problems. Then a villager who has been stealing peregrine falcon eggs from Charles's widow is also found dead. Elsewhere Mallory Edmonton is keeping her husband sedated and under lock and key in the attic. It transpires that Julian had money worries after investing in Charlie Edmonton's secret invention. Charles dies, and Barnaby and Troy must act fast if they are to uncover what really happened.

The Green Man
The Barnaby-Troy partnership is about to come to an end, as Troy has passed his inspector's exam and is moving on. However, the murderers of Midsomer go on piling up the bodies.
Joyce Barnaby gets trapped in a fallen canal tunnel, and in getting her out seven skeletons come to light in a hidden chamber. Meanwhile, two local tearaways are shot dead in the woods at Midsomer Worthy, and a tramp called Tom is accused of the killings. While Troy looks into the shootings, Barnaby wrestles with an old mystery. And although six of the skeletons found in the tunnel date from the 18th century, one is much more recent.

Bad Tidings
Barnaby's new partner, Sergeant Dan Scott, arrives from London's Metropolitan Police and expects to have a quiet life. But then the murders begin. The first victim is Fiona Thompson, stabbed several times with a long knife on her way home from a flamenco night at Midsomer Mallow village hall - and a witness reports a mysterious squeaking noise at the scene of the crime...

The Fisher King
Midsomer Barrow landowner Gareth Heldman is murdered with an Iron Age spear, on the same spot where his father was killed many years before during an archaeologists' dig at the village's prehistoric earthworks. Meanwhile, troupes of new age travellers (whom Heldman strongly disapproved of) are arriving to celebrate the summer solstice on June 21st.
Barnaby finds Heldman was a womaniser, with a tangled web of offspring. He also has to reopen the file on the thirty-year-old murder of Roger Heldman and investigate a tale of lost treasure.

Sins of Commission
The Midsomer Literary Festival opens with the real-life murder of a famous author at Midsomer St Michael. In investigating the killing, Barnaby and Scott find that the village highbrows are busy with corruption, embezzlement, and sexual peccadillos of various kinds. And the dead bodies go on piling up.

The Maid in Splendour
Jamie Cruickshank, a bartender at the Maid in Splendour public house, is keen on Bella Monday, a barmaid, and follows her to a tumbledown old cottage in the woods, only to be blasted with a twelve-bore shotgun. Then the pub landlord's son, Stephen Bannerman, is also killed in the same way. Barnaby finds there was ill-feeling between locals and newcomers to the village and also between the landlord and his aggressive son, who was in the process of taking over the business.

The Straw Woman
When a traditional festival is revived at Midsomer Parva, it goes disastrously wrong, with the curate (or assistant priest) being burnt alive inside a straw effigy of a woman. Local property owner Alan Clifford holds an orgy at the Manor House, and it seems he has secrets... And then, just after finding a pig's head on the altar of the parish church, the dead curate's gay lover, the Reverend Jim Hale, dies too, seemingly of 'spontaneous combustion' - that is, he bursts into flames without any normal explanation. Barnaby refuses to believe in rumours of witchcraft and is vindicated when it proves that Hale's clothes had been sprinkled with phosphorus. Then, with Barnaby hot on the killer's trail, Liz Francis is knocked out with a candlestick and becomes the third villager to be burnt alive.

Ghosts of Christmas Past
Barnaby looks forward, with reservations, to entertaining his in-laws for Christmas. Meanwhile, exactly 9 years after the suicide of Ferdy Villiers his family and their guests arrive at the somewhat dilapidated Villiers home to celebrate the festive season.

However, not everyone present is imbued with the Xmas spirit and the already rather tense atmosphere begins to disintegrate even further when it becomes apparent that someone in the household is all too aware that certain family members have dark secrets to hide.

When what initially appears to have been an accident is revealed to be murder Barnaby and Scott discover that they must first unravel what really happened in the past in order to resolve the present.

Based on the Novels by Caroline Graham
Written by Anthony Horowitz, Douglas Watkinson, Douglas Livingstone, Hugh Whitemore, Christopher Russell, David Hoskins, Jeremy Paul, Peter Hammond
Directed by Jeremy Silberston, Baz Taylor, Moira Armstrong, Peter Creegen, Peter Smith, David Tucker
Produced by Brian True-May
Original Music by Jim Parker
Cinematography by Nigel Walters, Chris O’Dell
Film Editing by Derek Bain, John Blackwell
Costume Design by Reg Samuel