Boys Don’t Knit (In Public) by T S Easton – Published by Hot Key Books in 2014

Ben Fletcher is the teenage son of embarrassing parents. He’s also an accidental and, frankly, hopeless criminal.

This book was written for the “young adult” market, so clearly I’m not the target audience. Initially I thought it was too similar to Adrian Mole, in concept and content, to be really novel or interesting, but at about a third of the way through I realised I was completely hooked.

So many questions:

Will Miss Swallow find out Ben’s been lying about the ziggurat?

Will he ever get the girl (or any girl)?

What does the future hold for West Meon Probation Services?

And as for tension, you can’t get more knife edge than ‘a tea cosy. With stranded colourwork. The worst possible combination.’

Tom Easton has proved that life for a teenage boy needn’t be all about Frank Lampard and Top Gear, sometimes all you need is a posse and a supply of dark blue wool (with a hint of silver).

Never mind the target audience, I really enjoyed it.

Ladies and gentleman. You may now knit.