When one of the world's rarest orchids turns up in Midsomer Malham, passion, compulsion, and jealousy leads to murder. Barnaby and Scott must find the Yellow Roth and determine who would stop at nothing to own the priceless specimen.

In a storm, in a workhouse, to a nameless woman, young Oliver Twist is born into parish care where he's overworked and underfed. As he grows older his adventures take him from the countryside to London, through harsh treatment, kindness, an undertaker, and a thieves' dens, where he makes friends and enemies. But all the time he is pursued by the mysterious Monks, who hires Fagin to turn Oliver into a thief. Oliver is rescued by chance and kind friends....