A ladies reading group in Midsomer Market starts losing members to murder.

Members of an elite student club close ranks after a murder at the Devington School.

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

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.

Barnaby and Scott investigate when the dead body of rival employee, Dexter Lockwood, is found in the Plummer family's factory steriliser.

Frank Hopkirk, an environmental adviser on the proposed site of a controversial Goodfare supermarket in Elverton-cum-Latterly, is found stabbed to death in an old farm building on the site. Barnaby & Jones question locals on both sides of the debate over the plans, and find that Mr Hopkirk had extra-curricular dealings with a number of the local ladies and their businesses. But which one of these caused passions to be stirred up to such a murderous extent?

There's a shock for Joyce when she and Tom visit a photo exhibition in Luxton Deeping. Barnaby also gets a glimpse of the bitter rivalry between the traditional film photo followers and the digital enthusiasts. Things develop a more serious turn, however, when a member of the local camera club is brutally strangled. For once there are no shortage of clues and leads, all pointing to one suspect - Barnaby himself !! Suspended from duty, Barnaby, with a little covert help from Jones, has to use all his deductive powers to discover the motive and unmask the real murderer before they strike again.