A Sergeant Cribb mystery

Grand Prix de Littérature Policière Winner, 1985

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.

UK Publisher: Macmillan, 1976
UK Paperback: Penguin, 1978
US Publisher: Dodd, Mead, 1976
US Paperback: Penguin, 1978
Latest UK edition: Arrow, 1991
Latest US edition: Soho Press, June, 2010

“Here’s charm and delight. A puzzle postlude to
Three Men in a Boat.”
HRF Keating, The Times

“Thames-side summer scenes plus real who-and-why puzzle add up to period piece of engaging charm.”
Francis Goff, Sunday Telegraph

“Lovely flavour of the time … ‘Naked? Completely, darling. In the buff. It’s awfully good fun.’ And so it all is.”
George Duthie, The Scotsman

“The most light-hearted, but by no means the least compelling, of Lovesey’s books.”
Marcel Berlins, The Times

“A relaxed and easy-going book, complete with traditional mystery traditionally solved. Enlivening the proceedings is a pert and attractive young lady who knows exactly what she wants.”
Newgate Callendar, New York Times