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Series · young adult mystery

All the Wrong Questions

by Lemony Snicket

The All the Wrong Questions series by Lemony Snicket has 4 known books (5 published). It is best read in publication order, starting with Who Could That Be at This Hour? (2012). Why Is This Night Different from All Other Nights? is the latest book with a fully recorded publication date.

Books
4 known books (4 novels + 1 collection)
Published
5
First published
2012
Status
completed
Shelved under
Young Adult , Mystery & Crime
Start here: Who Could That Be at This Hour? (2012) — then read straight through in publication order.
Book one
Cover of Who Could That Be at This Hour?
Who Could That Be at This Hour? (2012)

Reading order

The date order of published books and any announced future entries — the default way to read the series.

  1. Who Could That Be at This Hour?

    Novel
    Who Could That Be at This Hour? (2012) opens Lemony Snicket's prequel quartet, sending thirteen-year-old Snicket himself to the failing seaside town of Stain'd-by-the-Sea on his first case for the mysterious organization he serves, paired with a chaperone whose usefulness ranges from questionable to actively harmful. At 259 pages, it sets up the case that gives the series its title -- one that keeps generating the wrong questions to ask rather than the right ones -- in a tone darker and more noir-inflected than A Series of Unfortunate Events.
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  2. File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents

    Collection
    Following Who Could That Be at This Hour?, File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents continues All the Wrong Questions, published in April 2014 (272 pages).
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  3. When Did You See Her Last?

    Novel
    Published in October 2013 at 259 pages, When Did You See Her Last? is the second installment of All the Wrong Questions, continuing young Snicket's apprenticeship in the dried-up harbor town of Stain'd-by-the-Sea. Narrated by Snicket himself as the child protagonist rather than as the adult recalling other children's stories, it keeps building toward the tragic personal history readers of the original series already know awaits him.
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  4. Shouldn't You Be in School?

    Novel
    All the Wrong Questions continues with Shouldn't You Be in School?, the third entry, released in September 2014 at 259 pages. It carries forward the same digressive, vocabulary-defining narration and insistence that the world is unfair to children who ask too many questions that define the whole quartet, as Snicket's case in Stain'd-by-the-Sea deepens.
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  5. Why Is This Night Different from All Other Nights?

    Novel
    Why Is This Night Different from All Other Nights? followed Shouldn't You Be in School? by 1 year, continuing All the Wrong Questions as its fourth entry.
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Key facts about the All the Wrong Questions series

Our list has 5 books in the All the Wrong Questions series. Since all 5 are out now, you can read the whole list today. 4 are novels, while the rest is a collection.

Start with Who Could That Be at This Hour?, since it opens the publication order in 2012. File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents is book 2, from 2014. When Did You See Her Last? is book 3, from 2013.

Shouldn't You Be in School? is book 4, from 2014. Why Is This Night Different from All Other Nights? is book 5, from 2015.

The list keeps the books in date order, while each title links to its own page. Each book page shows its dates and editions.

Why Is This Night Different from All Other Nights? is the latest book with a full release date, out on 29 September 2015. Since the catalogue marks the series as complete, we list no next book.

The books came out between 2012 and 2015, while their length runs from 259 to 285 pages. That is a run of 3 years.

Lemony Snicket has 20 books on our list. Additionally, they write A Series of Unfortunate Events. We shelve the books under young adult mystery.

About the All the Wrong Questions series

All the Wrong Questions is Lemony Snicket's prequel series to A Series of Unfortunate Events, set decades earlier and following Snicket himself as a thirteen-year-old apprentice sent by the mysterious organization he serves (referred to only as "the organization") to the failing seaside town of Stain'd-by-the-Sea. Once a thriving harbor, the town has dried up along with its ink-producing octopi, and Snicket, paired with a chaperone whose usefulness ranges from questionable to actively harmful, is tasked with recovering a stolen statue -- a case that, true to the series' title, keeps generating the wrong questions to ask rather than the right ones. Each of the four books is framed as one of young Snicket's early cases, building toward the tragic personal history that readers of the original series already know awaits him.

The tone lands between the two other Snicket properties: darker and more genuinely noir-inflected than the fairy-tale absurdism of A Series of Unfortunate Events, but narrated with the same digressive, vocabulary-defining voice and the same insistence that the world is fundamentally unfair to children who ask too many questions. Because Snicket narrates in first person as the child protagonist rather than as an adult recalling events involving other children, the series reads as a more direct, melancholy character study of how he became the world-weary narrator of the Baudelaire orphans' story.

Frequently asked questions

How many books are in All the Wrong Questions?

Four novels -- Who Could That Be at This Hour? (2012), When Did You See Her Last? (2013), Shouldn't You Be in School? (2014), and Why Is This Night Different from All Other Nights? (2015) -- plus the companion short-story collection File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents (2014).

Is All the Wrong Questions a prequel to A Series of Unfortunate Events?

Yes. It follows Lemony Snicket himself as a young apprentice decades before the events of A Series of Unfortunate Events, and gradually reveals how he became the narrator readers meet in that series.

Do I need to read A Series of Unfortunate Events first?

No. All the Wrong Questions stands on its own as a complete mystery series, though readers who already know Snicket's later story will catch extra resonance in some details.

Where does File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents fit in the reading order?

It was published between the first and second novels and is often read in that slot, but as a short-story collection rather than a numbered book it can also be read after the main quartet.

Is All the Wrong Questions finished?

Yes, the series is complete at four novels plus the companion collection, published between 2012 and 2015.

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