Unwed mother Sally Jupp meets Dalgliesh when her friend Stavros is murdered. Dr. Stephen Maxie makes his mother hires Sally as housemaid, but the rest of the household hates her. Dalgliesh tracks the drug ring Stavros was part of.
Sally blackmails her uncle for airfare to Venezuela. Stephen's engagement to Sally shatters the family. Dalgliesh narrows the suspects down to the one person missing when the victim was found.
Dalgiesh learns of Sally's attempt to blackmail Victor and her letters from Venezuela. Deborah is attacked. The Maxie family and guests start suspecting each other.
Dalgliesh sees through a false confession. Final episode.
Commander Adam Dagliesh is given the job of setting up the Sensitive Crimes Squad, and faces an immediate challenge when Government Minister Sir Paul Berowne consults him about threatening letters. Soon Berowne's strange behaviour is alarming his associates and his aristocratic family.
Threatened by anonymous letters that link him to the drowning of an out-of-work actress, Sir Paul Berowne has resigned from the government, quarrelled with his family, and taken refuge in a seedy London church.
The bizarre death of Sir Paul Berowne has brought his family's problem out into the open as Dalgliesh questions the household to try and determine whether it was murder or suicide.
The death of Theresa Nolan, a nurse in the Berowne household, causes Dalgliesh's investigations to move closer to the family. Berowne's mother, Lady Ursula, now chooses to reveal a secret which she has been keeping for her son.
Dalgliesh traces Paul Berowne's mistress but he suspects that she is hiding the truth.
Piece by piece Dalgliesh is putting together the jigsaw of clues behind Sir Paul Berowne's death.
Detective Adam Dalgliesh looks into the death of a young ordinand who died under mysterious circumstances.
A small, family-owned museum features a "murder room", devoted to famous murders. A "copycat" killer seems to be inspired by the exhibits in the room.
Dalgliesh finds his investigations getting in the way of his romantic life, and also hampered by security services.
Interview with P. D. James, Dermot Monaghan, and Natasha Kaplinsky about her novel The Murder Room, on BBC Breakfast.