 When DCI Barnaby investigates the suicide of a man who was universally disliked in the village, he begins to question whether the man actually killed himself. Possible motives include his ex-wife s desire to stop being pestered by him, her current lover s wish to be rid of him once and for all, the man s miserly treatment of all those he came in contact with, and even a non-motive motive: death by local-loony-bin-inmate. When other murders follow, some of those motives become less likely, and Barnaby enlists the aid of an old friend who now runs the local sanitarium and uses her powers of observation to do some profiling of the murderer.