When the death up at the big house is announced to the village of Crompton Dando few are surprised The Elizabethan manor house is home to a most unlikely bunch of New Age oddballs and it was only a matter of time before one of them came to a bad end So it is a great disappointment when the Coroner deems James Carter's demise to have been simply an accident To Chief Inspector Barnaby, hurriedly summoned to the scene after another death is reported, the suspects are among the most bizarre he has ever encountered