IN MIDSOMER WELLOW, the village church bellringers are being murdered, one by one. The group is led by Peter Fogden, who is ambitious to win the upcoming competition, to make his generation of Fogden's mark on Midsomer Wellow's campanological history.

ccccAs each is murdered, the killer leaves a line from a nursery rhyme by the body, except that one of the notes has been altered to allude to an long-distant incident in Midsomer Wellow's past.

ccccBarnaby & Troy have to solve the riddle of the connection with the past to stop the killer's progress. Meanwhile, Troy's attention is being distracted by the seductive Lady of the Manor.