Books › Who Could That Be at this Hour?
Who Could That Be at this Hour?
290 pages
A delightfully deadpan, noir-soaked mystery that teaches you to question everything, especially the adults in charge.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like stepping into a foggy, black-and-white detective film where all the adults are hopelessly incompetent and the only sane person is a thirteen-year-old boy. The pace is brisk, driven by snappy, hardboiled dialogue and a delightfully absurd mystery that unfolds in a decaying seaside town. Its mood is distinctly noir-tinged and slightly melancholic, wrapped in a thick layer of deadpan humor and clever wordplay. The prose is highly stylized, constantly pausing to define words in the most cynical, amusing ways possible. It is a perfect fit for clever, inquisitive readers who enjoy a touch of the macabre, a lot of dry wit, and stories that embrace moral ambiguity rather than offering easy answers.
- Mood
- noir-tinged
- foggy
- melancholic
- eerie
- Tone
- deadpan
- wry
- absurdist
- inquisitive
- cynical
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- unreliability of adults · moral ambiguity · coming of age in a confusing world · the nature of truth · power of observation
- The writing
- The sentences are highly stylized and vocabulary-rich, blending hardboiled detective pastiche with deadpan, repetitive absurdity.
- The arc
- The protagonist begins with eager, if misguided, confidence and slowly descends into a lingering, unsettling realization that the world is far more complicated than it seems.
- Who it's for
- Clever readers of all ages who appreciate dry wit, extensive wordplay, and mysteries that refuse to tie themselves up in neat little bows.
Content notes
- incompetent adults
- mild peril
About the book
Thirteen-year-old Lemony Snicket begins his apprenticeship with S. Theodora Markson of the secretive V.F.D. in the tiny dot of a town called Stain'd By The Sea, where he helps investigate the theft of a statue.
Description from Open Library.
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