Brian True-May to play Tom Barnaby in a new murder mystery series he was to produce called Midsomer Murders. This was to be the second major role of his television career, again playing a police detective. Midsomer Murders was an immediate hit, achieving 13.5 million viewers on its launch in 1997 and was sold to more than 200 countries worldwide. In 2001 Nettles guest-starred in an episode of Heartbeat playing fraudster Giles Sutton. In 2003 he played Barnaby in the Boxing Day episode of French & Saunders. In 2007 he appeared in the BBC Radio 4 comedy series Will Smith Presents the Tao of Bergerac, alongside comedian Will Smith, which was about an obsessive fan of the series. In February 2009, it was announced that Nettles had decided to leave Midsomer Murders after two further series were made. His final appearance on-screen was on 2 February 2011, by which time he had appeared in 81 episodes. About his departure, he commented, "It’s always wise to leave people wanting more, rather than be booed off the stage because you bored them." In 2016 and 2017, Nettles had a recurring role as Ray Penvenen in the second and third series of the popular historical drama Poldark. Other television work In 1982 Nettles was Raoul (the 4th man) in the Agatha Christie Hour story The Fourth Man. In the 1990s Nettles narrated the BBC documentary X Cars following Greater Manchester Police's stolen car squad during the height of the UK wide joyriding crime wave. Nettles narrated Wild Discovery in 1995 and the BBC documentary series Airport from 1996 to 2005. In early 2010 Nettles wrote, presented and produced a three-part documentary, Channel Islands at War, to mark the 70th anniversary of the German invasion and subsequent occupation of the Channel Islands. He received threatening letters from some residents of Jersey, accusing him of implying that islanders were collaborators. He defended the documentary saying: "There is no possible way you could have avoided collaboration with the occupying power who had power over the civilian population. If you had not toed the line you would have been shot." This view was supported by local historians and members of the Channel Islands Occupation Society. In 2020 Nettles took over as the narrator on the Channel 4 television show Devon and Cornwall, a sister show to the network's The Yorkshire Dales and the Lakes programme. Books During