TAINTED FRUIT: Death threats against Melissa Townsend, the beautiful but spoilt daughter of the manor, bring DCI Tom Barnaby and Sergeant Gavin Troy to the affluent village of Midsomer Malham. Melissa is blamed by some residents for causing the death of a local poacher by refusing to mend the leaking roof at his peppercorn rent cottage.

RING OUT YOUR DEAD: The bell ringers at Midsomer Wellow are preparing for a National Striking competition but to retired Wing Commander Reggie Barton and other members of the community the noise made by the ringers are the bane of their lives. The animosity in the village is accentuated further when one by one the bell ringers are killed off leaving DCI Barnaby & Sergeant Troy to uncover who is responsible.

MURDER ON ST. MALLEY'S DAY: Jonathan Ekersley-Hyde, the headmaster of Midsomer Parva's Devington School, is a living fossil of Victorian educational values, feeding an old feud by forbidding any interaction between the pupils and the local villagers. When schoolboy Daniel Talbot fails to cross the finish line of the annual St Malley's Day race due to a fatal knife wound, Daniel's father, scion of the school's founding fathers, automatically points the finger at the village.

MARKET FOR MURDER: Barnaby and Troy are called to the wealthy village of Midsomer Market when local stock broker Selwyn Proctor's 63 Alvis goes up in flames. On the surface this seems like a typical rural community, with the highest source of entertainment being the women's reading club headed by upholding member of society Marjorie Empson. When she is found dead in her cottage this simple lifestyle becomes more complicated. They discover that the reading club is really a front for secret investment club meetings to discuss their latest strategies on the stock market.

A WORM IN THE BUD: The ancient Setwale Wood has provided herbal remedies since before Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries when Midsomer Abbey was in its heyday. Now it is the subject of court action by villagers to prevent the impecunious owner of Abbey Farm, James Harrington, from cutting it down to raise cash. Leading light of the Save the Wood campaign is neighbouring farmer Simon Bartlett.