DCI Barnaby's former colleague Jack Colby left the force under a cloud following a sex scandal involving villagers and officers at Causton police station. Now retrained as a probation officer, Jack is working at a halfway house for reformed criminals run by Lord Holm, an aristocrat who once served a prison sentence for killing his wife. However, when Jack is bludgeoned to death, Barnaby sets out to discover who murdered the man he once considered a friend.

When director Nick Cheyney is found beheaded by a guillotine on the set of his latest film, a low-budget production of The Scarlett Pimpernel being filmed at Magna Manor, DCI Barnaby and DS Jones are left with no shortage of suspects. Unfortunately for our detectives, Cheyney was on poor terms with just about everybody, including the mother of his child, an actor who blamed him for ruining his career, and the tight-fisted producer determined to see the film finished at all costs.

A photographer is murdered shortly after exhibiting a compromising picture of Barnaby - who becomes a suspect in the ensuing investigation. Joyce concludes that someone is trying to frame him, and is stunned when he admits to a previous relationship with the murdered man's wife. Jones is forced to work with the irritating DI Martin Spellman to solve the case.

When prominent Midsomer Market doctor, Alan Delaney, is killed by a hit-and-run driver while in charge of his business partner's new car, DCI Barnaby and DS Jones soon begin to wonder if Dr. Delaney was the real target or if a more sinister plot is afoot.

Barnaby is delighted that his heroes, Hired Gun, are reuniting to play at the Midsomer Rocks festival - minus their drummer, who disappeared 30 years ago after driving his car into a quarry. However, a string of bizarre warnings convinces the paranoid lead singer that someone is trying to stop the reunion, and his fears are confirmed when the backing singer drops dead on stage.

When a family glassware business collapses following the death of one of its partners, DCI Barnaby investigates allegations of financial irregularities, love triangles, and a string of murders. Lapsed Freemason DS Jones uses his inside knowledge to explore the ceremonial aspects of two killings, but it is Cully's production of Hamlet that gives Tom the key to the mystery.

Mischievous trickster, Rex Masters, finally gets his comeuppance when his body is found floating below the weir in Midsomer Deverell. As DCI Barnaby and DS Jones investigate, the extent of Rex's double life starts to emerge when three family friends and a long-lost niece each produce wills claiming his fortune. Does Rex's collection of erotic photographs from the 1960s hold the key to the tangled relationships and feuds blighting the Masters family?

DCI Barnaby and DS Jones investigate when the body of Simon Bright is found inside a disused World War II hanger at Cooper's Cross Airfield and begin a search for his missing girlfriend, Laura Sharp. Barnaby is convinced that one of Laura's ex-lovers is responsible but given her rather active life, the question becomes, which one?