Written in Blood

A literary gathering in Midsomer turns sour in the most dramatic way possible. A noted author has come to address the local writers, everyone is in a civilised mood, and then the host is found dead in his own bedroom, naked and bludgeoned. What should have been an afternoon of polite literary talk becomes a murder investigation before anyone has finished their tea. The state of the body is part of the message, whatever the message turns out to be.

Barnaby has to work out who in this small, opinionated group had cause to hate the host enough to kill him, and why the scene looks the way it does. Part of the puzzle is simply how anyone managed it. A grown man, alone in his bedroom, in the middle of an event full of witnesses: the crime is both public and private, and it makes no sense either way. Writers make excellent suspects, being observant, grudging people who were all in the same room.

Caroline Graham and Anthony Horowitz wrote the episode, Jeremy Silberston directed, and the guest list is a treat. Anna Massey is Honoria Lyddiard, Joanna David her daughter Amy, with David Troughton's Brian Clapper, John Shrapnel's Max Jennings and Jane Booker's Laura Hutton making up the numbers. John Nettles and Daniel Casey head the investigation as Barnaby and Sergeant Troy, with Jane Wymark and Laura Howard as Joyce and Cully, and Barry Jackson's Dr Bullard to confirm the worst.

The episode works because the setting feels like evidence in its own right. A room full of people who make a living from observation is the perfect audience for a secret, and the writers make the most of it. Nobody at the gathering is telling the truth in quite the way they think they are, and the answer has been hiding in plain sight all afternoon. And domestic tragedy has rarely looked so refined.