During a regatta, the body of Rowing Club chairman Guy Sweetman is found bludgeoned and drowned. Bachelor Sweetman was prolifically promiscuous and jealousy would seem to be the motive.
A four-member syndicate owns a racehorse that two of them are desperate to sell and two of them are determined to keep. When one of them is murdered, Barnaby is on the case.
John Ransom collapses and dies outside a pub after a fight with his brother-in-law over the baptism of his niece. He has electrical scars across the top of his head.
When a corporate giant tries to acquire a small but respected relish factory owned and run by a dysfunctional family, a naked body is found in the warehouse.