Lemony Snicket is at it again. File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents is a collection of mysteries happening around the town of Stain’d-By-The-Sea. It’s set in the same world as his All the Wrong Questions series, in which a young Snicket is the main character. It overlaps with the Series of Unfortunate Events, but isn’t exactly a prequel in that you won’t get direct connections to the Baudelaire orphans.
13 Suspicious Incidents is sort of a standalone collection, so don’t be afraid to check it out even if you haven’t read any of the other books. It seems like Snicket’s homage to Encyclopedia Brown, with several mysteries to be solved—solutions at the back of the book. But, of course, it’s all done in Snicket’s signature style, with his pedantic definitions of words and curious cast of characters.
To celebrate the book’s release today, Little, Brown Books is providing two copies of 13 Suspicious Incidents for us to give away, one print book and one audio book. The audio version is read by (of course) 13 readers, including Terry Gross, Ira Glass, Jon Scieszka, and Sarah Vowell. To whet your appetite, here’s a chapter from the book, “Pinched Creature.” You can read the PDF here, or listen to Terry Gross read it aloud below. Of course, the excerpt here doesn’t include the solution to the mystery—you’ll have to check out the whole book, or puzzle it out yourself!
To win a copy, fill out the form below by 10pm EDT, Friday, April 4. We’ll pick two winners at random, one for the audio book and one for the print book. US addresses only. (If you have trouble with the form below, click here to enter.)
This is great! I’m signing up for the contest now!