An elderly woman is found dead in her cottage and DCI Tom Barnaby is convinced the death is not down to natural causes

Gerald Hadleigh, secretary of a writers' circle, is found battered to death the morning after the group's meeting with best-selling novelist (and former psycho-therapist) Max Jennings. Gerald did not want to invite Max to Midsomer Worthy, and he seemed apprehensive about the visit.Barnaby's investigations show that Gerald was a man of mystery - he had no National Insurance number, no family, and no marriage certficate to go with his wedding photographs. And it seems he had a mysterious woman visitor on the night of his death... then Max Jennings goes missing and is found dead.

The body of Agnes Gray, a woman who loved only animals, is found in the river - but she did not drown. And then her cousin Esslyn Carmichael is tricked into killing himself on stage during an amateur production of the murder mystery Amadeus. Barnaby has to get to grips with clues which include adultery, dramatic ambition, stolen religious art, and large donations to animal charities, before unmasking a killer who proves to be mad.Meanwhile, love begins to blossom between Cully Barnaby and Nico Bentley, one of the cast of Amadeus...

Barnaby and Troy are in Badger's Drift again, this time to investigate the murder of an unpopular property developer called Richard Bayly who had been suffering from a brain tumour. Bayly had recently come up with plans to build a new housing estate in the sleepy village, despite determined local opposition, and he was killed with an Indian sword belonging to Stephen Wentworth, the local Vicar. Another interesting factor is the recent arrival in the village of Simon Fletcher, a theatre director with unhappy childhood memories and perhaps an old grievance.

Nine years after a series of unsolved murders at Midsomer Worthy, a new death which follows the same pattern (a girl is found strangled in the woods) leads to fears that the serial killer is back in business. Barnaby and Troy look out the old files in dealing with the first new murder - and then others follow.

Troy is in the Midsomer Worthy cricket eleven for the annual match against Fletchers Cross, so he is on the spot when the wife of Robert Cavendish, the Team Captain and a big local landowner, is found bludgeoned to death with a cricket bat. As often happens, the death toll mounts before the killer can be unmasked. Why should the cricket team's scorer be stabbed to death with a Nazi dagger at the following match? Cavendish, as a mine owner, may have been responsible for the 'accidental' deaths of two of his employees in years gone by. If someone is out for revenge, who is it? Meanwhile, a protest march to maintain footpaths across Cavendish's land finds a foot-bridge has been sabotaged, and their leader takes a ducking...

Midsomer Mallow has a shot at the Perfect Village title, provided it can keep a murderer at bay.

A postman is brutally murdered on his morning round in the hamlet of Goodman's Land. Local WPC Jay Nash helps Barnaby and Troy to establish that Dave offered a very personal service to the female villagers, leaving a trail of jealous husbands in his wake, and it becomes clear that the tiny village is riven with other adulterous affairs. Then the body count begins to go up...Meanwhile, romance is blossoming between Troy and Jay.

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, and Barnaby and Troy investigate.