"Who Could That Be at This Hour?"

Snicket, L. (2012). Who could that be at this hour? (Seth illus. ). Little Brown Books for Young Readers. 272 Pages. ISBN 9780316123082

Primary genre: Mystery

Other elements: suspense, friendship, adventure, humor

Intended reader age: 8 and up

Synopsis:

Even though the town of Stain’d-by-the-Sea has been almost completely forgotten and abandoned, there are still plenty of secrets hiding in the shadows. The assignment that Lemony Snicket and his mentor receive is not as straightforward as they had originally thought. The simple search for a stole statue becomes obscured when questions of who the proper owner is and what value this practically worthless statue holds arise. Hot on the trail of the missing statue, Snicket is faced with multiple set backs including his mentor’s dismal detective skills and his own tendency to ask the wrong questions.

Review:

When I picked this up I did not realize this would be an ‘autobiography’ of the ‘author’ (the author being Lemony Snicket). If I understand this correctly, this new series (of which there will be four) chronicles the beginnings of Lemony Snicket’s career as a detective. I am not sure if this will tie into his connection to the Baudelaire children and how he became the narrator of their story though.

I was a huge fan of the Series of Unfortunate Events books when that series was being written. I found them to be great books that had the ability to interest a broad range of readers and I loved the way that Snicket defined the vocabulary young readers might struggle with. There were similar elements in this book that brought back the Unfortunate series for me, especially when it came to the vocabulary. But, there were times where it felt like too much. There would be a definition, which was then followed by four different examples of alternative words or phrases. The main character even became snarky and at times practically sneered, "I know what that means" when this occurred. 

The end of the book did not leave me completely satisfied. I know this is going to be part of a series, but even with that option there were a great number of unanswered questions at the end. We did finally learn who the mysterious girl was that

The first illustration in the book

he was referring to through the whole story. One thing I like to do with books that have illustrations is find the place in the story where the illustrated scene is and compare the illustration to the description. The first illustration threw me off because it features a girl in a train station and there were no scenes of girls in train stations in the book. After finishing the book it because obvious who that girl is and it also explained the final illustration, which again was not a scene in the book. But, aside from that answer there was not much else that was given to us. It will be interesting to see if these questions are addressed in the subsequent novels. I almost want to keep a page of the questions I have to check that they are answered later.

One interesting tactic that was employed in the book was reference to other works of literature. In some places, Snicket would come right out and state the title, as he did when telling Pip and Squeak to check out The Wind in the Willows. But, in other spots he would give a short synopsis of the plot, “ ‘Next time you’re at the library check out a book about a champion of the world’” (p. 102). I plan to go through to see if I was able to identify all of the works that were reference, and I kind of wish that there was a listing at the end. Not of the title per se but maybe of the pages where these reference occurred. 

I feel that is readers enjoyed this story then another great one they should check out is The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict, which is also a ‘founders’ story. I would say that the Mysterious Benedict Society would be for those readers who enjoyed the Series of Unfortunate Events but are looking for something a little more challenging.