The Curse of the Ninth

A prize-winning violinist is killed, and to make the case properly insulting, his Stradivarius goes missing with him. The theft alone is a motive; a fiddle like that is worth more than most houses in Midsomer. The combination gives Barnaby and Jamie Winter a long list of suspects and a short list of people who would have had the chance. The case that follows is a long one, full of people who can argue about phrasing for an hour and call it small talk.

The musician's world turns out to be as competitive as any village choir, with rather more at stake. Vernon De Harthog, Ivo Baxter, Hamish Rafferty and his daughter Candice, Michael Falconer and the young Jacob Wheeler all had reasons to want the violinist out of the way, and the stolen instrument points a finger at every one of them. Barnaby sorts through the professional rivalries and the personal resentments to find the motive that actually holds, while Winter keeps track of an instrument that has not turned up anywhere.

The title nods to the old superstition that hangs over classical composers, that the ninth is the one that finishes you off. The episode plays with the idea that music and death have been keeping company for a long time, and that a violin can be a treasure and a curse in the same case. It is the sort of episode where everyone knows everyone else's business, because in the music world, gossip arrives on time and in tune.

Julia Gilbert and Caroline Graham wrote it, Matt Carter directed. Neil Dudgeon and Nick Hendrix investigate, with Fiona Dolman and Manjinder Virk in support. Simon Callow plays Vernon De Harthog, Colin Michael Carmichael is Ivo Baxter, Robert Daws and Rosie Holden are the Raffertys, James Fleet appears as Michael Falconer, and Callum Blake is Jacob Wheeler.

It is a music episode in the best tradition: the art is treated seriously, the artists are not. And it is good to see the show trust a subject the way it does here.