Death in a Chocolate Box is the eighth episode of the tenth series of Midsomer Murders and first aired on 11th May 2008.
Lord Holm, an aristocrat who once served a prison sentence for killing his sluttish wife, has turned his home into a rehabilitation centre for other ex-offenders. Gina and Jack Colby, married ex-police officers, assist him, Jack as administrator and Gina as a counsellor. Jack has expressed concerns over the hostel's financial situation shortly before he is murdered. Eddie Marston, a new arrival at the hostel, over whose admittance Tom Barnaby has had misgivings, goes missing, and the local postman, a disgraced former policeman, tells Tom that he has been blackmailing Jack over information given him by Marston when they were cell-mates. Also in the frame is the bad-tempered local innkeeper, whose neglected wife had been using Jack as a confidant. Nothing is ever simple when investigating a Midsomer murder even one of Death in a Chocolate Box.
Tropes:
- Better Manhandle the Murder Weapon: This led to Lord Holm's arrest for murder in the backstory. Finding his wife dead, he picked up the murder weapon and was immediately arrested by the police officer who committed the murder. He was confused enough that he allowed himself to be convinced that he had committed the crime and then blacked it out.
- Captivity Harmonica: A flashback to when Eddie Marston, the second Victim of the Week, was in prison shows him playing the harmonica. When his new probation officer enters, he pays a mocking note.
- Handy Cuffs: Tom, for some reason - possibly lingering respect as the murderer was Gina Colby, someone he had once looked up to - handcuffs her with her hands in front of her. The murderer feigns sickness, then whacks Tom in the face, and then dashes away onto the Railroad Tracks of Doom.
- I Know Kung Fu: A particularly silly example occurs when Barnaby and Jones enter a room to find the elderly Lord Holm assaulting a woman. Lord Holm drops into a boxing stance:Lord Holm: I used to box at Eton!
- Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Maria Godbold, Lord Holm's cuckolding late wife, was doing it by getting arrested on a Friday night, and then having sex with police officers in the cells.
- Railroad Tracks of Doom / Train Escape: Gina Colby attempts to escape from Barnaby by hitting him while the car is stopped at a set of boom gates waiting for a train to pass. She leaps out of the car and attempts to dash across the tracks ahead of the oncoming train, but doesn't make it.
- Writing Indentation Clue: Barnaby rubs a pencil over the notebook in Jack Colby's office to discover the last thing he wrote was a letter. Although Barnaby only gets the last part of the note, it is enough to tell him the letter exists and may have been the reason why he was murdered.
