Midsomer Rhapsody

An auction, a cheap lot, and a valuable musical manuscript that should never have gone for the price of a round of drinks. The discovery sets off a chain of deaths that leads straight back to Barnaby's door, because in Midsomer a bargain is never just a bargain. But somebody sold the thing too cheaply, and somebody else bought it too cheaply, and the gap between the two is where the bodies start to appear.

The investigation circles the village's musical set, a group with more grudges than tuning forks. Peggy Alder and Charlie Speight are part of it, as are Melody and Alan Thorpe, and Arthur Leggott, each with their own claims about who the manuscript really belongs to and what it cost them. Sergeant Dan Scott keeps the paperwork honest while Barnaby does what he does best: letting people talk until they say the wrong thing. Joyce keeps an eye on proceedings from the sidelines, and Dr George Bullard contributes the medical facts as the deaths start stacking up.

Richard Cameron and Caroline Graham wrote it, Richard Holthouse directed. John Nettles heads the cast as Barnaby with John Hopkins as Scott, Jane Wymark as Joyce and Laura Howard as Cully. June Whitfield turns up as Peggy Alder, Trevor Peacock as Charlie Speight, Belinda Sinclair as Melody Thorpe, David Lyon as Alan Thorpe and Nicholas Amer as Arthur Leggott, with Barry Jackson as Bullard.

The episode is a reminder that a cheap bargain only stays cheap until someone notices what it was worth. A musical manuscript is an unusual centrepiece for a murder mystery, but the motives it drags out are the old familiar ones: greed, and the sense that something was taken from you. Music is meant to soothe, and the episode enjoys proving that it does nothing of the sort. The notes may be beautiful. The behaviour they inspire is anything but.