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Most have heard about information being encoded in knitting, whether it's Madame Defarge saving the names of those going to the guillotine in A Tale of Two Cities, or tales of women spies sending hidden information during WWII.

I mentioned a few months ago that I've been working on this knitted dragon, and I may have mentioned that my knitting is a little... haphazard. I finally finished all the pieces for the right wing, but when I went to put them together, one of the panels that was supposed to be a parallelogram was a completely different shape. I have absolutely no idea how I got it so wrong.

(Did I follow half the instructions for one panel and half for the same panel on the opposite wing? That's my best guess, though I'm not sure that explains it. It remains a mystery.)

Anyhow, that gave me a better understanding for why encoding data in knitted items would have worked so well. Because, yes, most knitters are better than I am, but if large groups of people are knitting and sending socks, statistically a fair number of socks will look like something I might make. Anyone checking packages would find it difficult to tell encoded data from terrible knitting. That's the point, of course, but it hadn't really thought about it.

Also, I realized I would have made a terrible spy if I needed to send my reports that way. Imagine the poor soul trying to decode my slapdash scarf. 😂 Oh well. It's a good thing a nation wasn't relying on me.

In the whimsical small town of Bisque, crime is an unwelcome visitor. But a dapper cat detective keeps watch. Sir Percival, with his keen intellect and gentleman cat’s code, stands sentinel.

One fateful night, amid Christmas lights and glittering snowflakes, Sir Percival spots an intruder in the shadows, silently stalking the home of a neighbor where a spirited little dog resides. But following the intruder leads him to a shocking discovery—a dead body that even the intruder hadn’t known about.

To protect their humans, he and the little dog, Fidget, will have to unravel clues that lead them through a web of betrayal, eccentric neighbors, and buried secrets!

In the tall tales of Sherlock is a Girl's Name we answer this question, following Sherlock into deep space, 1990s Russia, Victorian London, contemporary USA, worlds of magic, and more.

Holmes' Watsons include ghosts, robots, a teenage tuba player, a little boy, with the detecting duo doing what they do best: solving crimes and having adventures!

Authors include Tansy Rayner Roberts, Eugen Bacon, Sarah Tollok, Verity Burns, Dannye Chase, Kenzie Lappin, JD Cadmon, Stacy Lawhorne, Karen J Carlisle, Millie Billingsworth, Katya de Becerra, Narrelle M Harris and Atlin Merrick.