A man drowns in plain sight. His cries pierce the summer heat. Before help can arrive, he vanishes beneath the Thames.

Private detective Lance Pomegranate stands witness — barefoot, drunk, bearing a re-opened decade-old wound and plunged into a puzzle that defies easy answers. The onlookers? An eclectic crew of non-conformists aboard the houseboat Oh Dearie Me, each stranger than the last, disturbingly calm in the face of death.

None of the suspects left each other’s sight and the only clue found is an lectronic device not meant to go underwater. As Lance unravels alibis, cryptic ledgers, and echoes from a long-buried past, the river yields more questions than solutions.

With the police alongside him and accidental ally Ciara Gallen causing chaos behind him, Lance must navigate a sunlit stretch of southwest London where eccentrics, secrets, and hidden agendas collide, as one tragedy follows another.

Though familiar friendships and L.E. Bendon’s signature wit remain ever present, The Weapon and the Fruit series takes a darker turn in this third installment. While Four and Twenty Blackboards saw Lance justify his own brand of professionalism, and in Any Body Can Murder he learnt to overcome shame, Hipsters of Teddington Lock both raises and answers the question: Who hurt you?