“Who Could That Be At This Hour?” By Lemony Snicket, in which Lemony sneaks around at too late of an hour

BE ADVISED! Along with containing minor spoilers, this review will be less about the book itself and more about the series of All The Wrong Questions and what it accomplishes and what it fails. 

When I was around twelve or thirteen I first picked up “Who could that be at this hour?” It instantly captured my imagination with its air of intrigue and fascinating, semi-surreal setting. I grew up with the previous serious in the Lemony Snicketverse, “A Series of Unfortunate Events” and I hadn’t yet discovered my love of noir films so many of the tropes at play were initially lost on me.

Looking back, older and more mature, I can see the seams. Already in the first book of a series of four, I can see the moments where the story lags. Having read all four books, I can see that while Handler is a master of delivering a powerful and clever satire, he doesn’t know how to break his own routines. It’s less noticeable in the first book than it is in later entries, but we are already establishing a pattern of events which will continue without much alteration or subversion.

The references to “A Series of Unfortunate Events” lack subtly. You can feel Handler winking at you through the text and while I can imagine finding that charming as a child, looking at the structure of the series, it is mostly extraneous content that undermines the strength of the actual narrative. 

That said, there’s still dynamite to this idea. We get to see a young Lemony visiting a strange town full of new and colorful characters who are enshrouded in a variety of mysteries. We get a plucky reporter character, a mysterious femme fatale (or the thirteen-year-old equivalent), and a dastardly villain named Hangfire, with a complex plot that is as unknowable as it is sinister. And re-reading the series, I can see the numerous plot points set up and foreshadowed long before they pay off. The plot is well-written, the payoffs to the mysteries are gut-punching. The mystery is instantly interesting, and the characters likable. 

This book is mostly set-up, getting Lemony to know most of the characters we'll be with for the rest of the series and getting him invested in the plot. The copious noir references are already in full gear as Lemony gets ready to steal a black figurine (Maltese Falcon), and the misdirection and misattribution are already in full gear. Of course, the ending doesn't come as much of a surprise as an adult who has seen noir films, but for a kid, it left me craving more. The only plot thing that bothers me is that Hangfire's ability to mimic voices, used to full effect in this book, is only used occasionally, later on. There's an opportunity to stir up some major paranoia in this series, but that opportunity is mostly squandered in later entries. 

The only issue regarding the plot is that, as a protagonist, Lemony lacks the personality he needs to support such a strange and fascinating narrative. He's a mysterious investigator, new to town and not-quite one of the locals,  and I get that. But with the previous series, Handler established a group of instantly charming characters with the Baudelaires. Here we're just left listening to Lemony's occasional reminisces. There are moments we sympathize with the character and want things to turn out alright for him, but there's never a true connection to him because the books insist on keeping him almost as shrouded in darkness as the faceless villain. Looking back, I wonder why Handler didn't just make the series about Ellington Feint, the girl with question marks for eyebrows. She's just as mysterious as Lemony but more emotionally vulnerable and with her own tragic and absurd backstory worth exploring in greater detail. 

Lemony's failure to be an engaging protagonist is not the biggest issue with the series, unfortunately. The biggest issue with the series is that the satire falls flat. With “A Series of Unfortunate Events” we got a brilliant metaphor for the various, idiotic parts of society that adults follow along because of conformity, cowardice, and weakness of character. It contained in that idea, a brilliant metaphor for the nature of organization and groupthink. We got to explore how fundamentally broken civilization is, in a children’s series, and that's fantastic. 

And while there is a very powerful, very meaningful message at the end of “All the Wrong Questions”, it takes a while to get there. And in the meantime, we are trapped with characters like the local law enforcement, who are constantly bickering (mocking the squabbling marriage archetype) and S. Theodora Markson, Lemony’s incompetent supervisor. And while there is depth to these characters, there’s no real reason why they do what they do. They are merely incompetent, we’ve forgone the use of moral examination for blatant stupidity. With it difficult to attach to the main character, this makes the series incredibly frustrating and repetitive. 

The series still has value and the first book at the very least is worth getting a taste of that patented Handler surrealism. I would recommend getting this book for someone in the eight to twelve range. But as it lacks the complexity and charisma of Handler’s previous work, I wouldn’t be surprised if they drop the series half-way through book 3.

It was Good.

Thank you for reading! If you are interested in picking up a copy of "Who Could That Be At This Hour?" you can purchase it online here (https://www.amazon.com/Who-Could-That-This-Hour/dp/0316335479) and here (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13477819-who-could-that-be-at-this-hour), or look for it at your local bookstore. I hope you have a nice day!