Birds of Prey

"Birds of Prey" finds Midsomer Magna having a bad week. One resident has put money into a secret invention and ended up dead in what looks like suicide, and over at the falconry someone has decided the valuable eggs are worth stealing. A suicide and a theft do not usually belong in the same case file, which is what makes the pairing interesting. Barnaby and Troy have to work out whether the threads connect or whether the village is simply having an unlucky season.

The invention angle gives the episode its business intrigue, all nervous investors and talk of fortunes. The falconry side is pure Midsomer: expensive birds, expensive eggs, and the kind of specialist knowledge that turns theft into a craft. The eggs are the sort of detail this series was built on, rare enough to be worth killing for and absurd enough to be worth watching. Mallory Edmonton, George Hamilton, Naomi Sinclair and Julian Shepherd all have a stake in one scheme or the other, and Eleanor Macpherson, played by Rosalind Knight, watches the proceedings with a beady authority she has been perfecting for decades. Kate Buffery and David Calder bring the right amount of wounded pride to the money side of things.

Michael Russell and Caroline Graham wrote it, Jeremy Silberston directed, and the episode juggles its two plots without dropping either. The double structure keeps things moving; just when the invention case starts to feel thin, the falconry thread bites again, and the village closes ranks in between.

It is a neat piece of construction, two crimes that fit together like the halves of a shell. The show had done busier episodes and would do busier again, but there is something pleasing about a mystery this tidy. And even the birds seem to know more than they are letting on, with the ending holding one genuine surprise in reserve. A quiet, crafty hour, and no bad way to spend it.