An elementary school teacher in training takes a midnight swim in the Thames and witnesses a body being dumped. Cribb and Thackerey investigate and uncover strange parallels with the then-popular Jerome K. Jerome mystery Three Men in a Boat.
After Jerome K Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat became a Victorian bestseller, rowing on the Thames was the great craze of 1889. The novel begins, however, with skinny-dipping (under another name) by some student teachers. By chance one of them finds herself a witness in a case of murder. The suspects? Three men in a boat.
When Cribb and Thackeray take to the river in pursuit, nobody will take them seriously. However, they stick doggedly to the trail, which leads upstream to Oxford.