Barnaby and Troy are called in after the body of a young Woman is founds in Strangler's wood, named by the Sun, a site where ten years ago three other women were murdered in the same grizzly fashion. George Meakham, now retired was in charge of the case at the time, and still suffers with a morbid obsession for the case, as he never managed to solve it.
Some fine performances as you'd expect, Toby Jones is in as mortician Dan Peterson, he proved to be quite fun and would run for Series 2. Phyllis Logan and Nicholas Farrell are great as the Merrill's and Trudie Styler is great as their neighbour. Favourite performance for me is Peter Eyre as Leonard Pike, he's a fantastic actor, and gives such a creepy but charismatic performance.
The Agatha Christie gag was a little uncalled for, haha.
There is so much going on in this intricate and craftily written Murder mystery. I love how Barnaby is trying to spend time with Cully but being scuppered at every opportunity, it provides a little relief from the story which is quite a grim one.
It's one of the best of the lot, interesting characters, great sub plots, lots of mis-direction and red herrings, all in all it's brilliant. 10/10