The Devil's Work

The patriarch of the Stourwick Estate dies, and the family gathers to sort out what remains. Then the rebellious son announces that he intends to sell the place, and that his tenure will be the Shirewell family's last. The siblings are outraged. News like that travels through the county faster than the family's grief. The announcement is a declaration of war in a family that has been at peace only on the surface. Someone decides the plan must never come to fruition, and before long Barnaby and Winter are picking through a family where everyone has a claim on the land and a reason to stop the sale.

It is a domestic tragedy dressed up as a property dispute. The estate has belonged to the Shirewells for generations, and the argument over its future turns ordinary greed into something sharper. The suspects all know the estate's history, and they all tell it slightly differently, which Barnaby files away with the patience of a man who has heard a hundred family legends. A family that closes ranks in public and argues in private makes for difficult suspects and worse witnesses, and Barnaby's job is to find which relative decided the inheritance was worth a body.

Caroline Graham and Julia Gilbert wrote it, Roberto Bangura directed. Neil Dudgeon and Nick Hendrix are Barnaby and Winter, with Fiona Dolman's Sarah Barnaby and Annette Badland's Fleur Perkins in support. Peter Serafinowicz plays Lucian Shirewell, Alex Macqueen is Francis Shirewell, Agni Scott is Davina Shirewell, Sarah Woodward is Ursula Shirewell, Verity Marshall is Jordana Linsbury and Charles Dale is Gideon Blundell.

And the danger in these great houses never really comes from outside. It has been sitting in the drawing room for generations, waiting for someone to die. The Devil's Work aired in the last days of 2025, which is the right time of year for a family row over the future of the family seat.