Midsomer Murders, Season 22

The Night of the Stag A VAT inspector goes missing as he hunts for an illicit cider still responsible for brewing The Beast, a potent local hooch. At the Midsomer Abbas spring fayre celebrating its friendship with Midsomer Herne, Barnaby and Jones sample the local cider, while temperance preacher Norman Grigor calls on residents to repent of their drunken ways. Suddenly, Barnaby is violently ill as the body of missing man Peter Slim is found floating in the cider vat. Pathologist Kate Wilding says the victim’s injuries look like he was shaken to death by a giant.

A sacred Trust Teenage vandals smash a stained glass window at Midsomer Priory but the Prioress Mother Julian doesn’t want the police involved. But when Mother Thomas Aquinas is strangled, Barnaby and Jones must enter their cloistered world. The Order of St Mathilde were celebrating their first new recruit for 30 years, but the murder leaves just three nuns. As well as Mother Julian and wheelchair-bound Mother Jerome, there’s Sister Catherine, a novice in her 20s. In Midsomer Malham Father Behan, chaplain to the Priory, complains to Barnaby that the nuns are reluctant to modernise, even though they have no money. Barnaby discovers the Order has a 200 year-old deed of trust, made by landowner Sir Anthony Vertue, which allows them to stay at the Priory for as long as a community exists.Jones visits the Vertue Arms where barmaid Kate reveals she saw a woman in old-fashioned clothes acting strangely on the day of the murder. Jones also learns that teenage couples sneak into the Priory grounds for romantic liaisons. The nuns are shocked to find that their 17th century French silver altar set worth £60,000 has vanished from the safe. Mother Thomas wanted to sell the silver to help their finances. Did a dodgy dealer kill her?

A Rare Bird Members of the Midsomer-in-the-Marsh Ornithological Society (MMOS) fall out when Ralph Ford claims he has spotted a blue-crested hoopoe. The sighting puts him ahead in this year’s list competition but MMOS president, Patrick Morgan, says the bird could never have been seen in Midsomer, as it is native to Uganda. Ralph storms out of the meeting, infuriated. The next day Patrick is found dead in Swansdown Lake, the scene of the alleged hoopoe sighting. His body is pulled from the lake, entangled in a mist net used to catch and release birds. He has sustained several blows to the head. The dead man’s wife Nina, a former Russian prima ballerina, had recently become pregnant. Before his death Patrick Morgan accused Nina of sleeping with another man professing it to be impossible that she be pregnant.

The Dark Rider Bentham DeQuetteville falls to his death from the roof of Quitewell Hall after seeing a headless horseman, but his aristocratic family seem more concerned about their forthcoming Civil War re-enactment than the tragedy. Betty, estate manager and second wife of Toby DeQuetteville, wants to find ways to gain income for the ancestral seat, not helped by the eccentric head of the family Sir Ludo and his wife Lady Izzy. Barnaby finds a priest hole containing a 17th century portrait of headless Cavalier officer Geoffrey DeQuetteville on a grey horse. Toby’s identical twin Julian tells detectives about a family legend - if the ghost of Geoffrey points at you it means you will die. Toby’s son Simon blames the ghost for his mother’s death in a riding accident years earlier. He has been struck dumb ever since. The DeQuetteville’s wealthy neighbours, Roundhead descendant Harry Fleetwood and his wife Sasha are being driven mad by the Civil War battles, especially as the DeQuettevilles corrupt history by changing the battle’s outcome in favour of the Cavaliers. When Julian refuses to sell Long Meadow to Sasha, she persuades him to put it up as a wager instead. If the Roundheads win the battle, the Fleetwoods get the land. Then she pays glamorous stable owner Amanda Harding not to hire her horses to the DeQuettevilles.

Murder of Innocence A scarred and tattooed Grady Felton returns home to Midsomer after serving time for the murder of village youngster Daniel Denning. He hopes to sell his old cottage but Daniel’s extended family are angry that he has been allowed to come home.The case was Jone’s first murder as a PC and his sympathies lie with Daniel’s dad Ted, who owns the Binwell Estate, and Daniel’s sister Deirdre. Memories are also raw for Mandy Gideon, who runs the Binwell shoot, and her sons Will and Kyle. Meanwhile, the Chief Constable’s fitness test is looming and Sarah persuades a reluctant Barnaby to come to military-style workouts run by Gareth Dunbar, a Scottish fitness trainer. Just as Grady returns, his defence barrister Giles Harrison is killed by a lethal dose of morphine. Grady had threatened Harrison and others – including Jones – but he has a strong alibi. Jones can’t get hold of other people on Grady’s hit list and is a bit jumpy. Meanwhile, a drugs trial is looming for another of Daniel’s friends, Fred Burns.