Poison for Breakfast

Lemony Snicket has investigated villainy, treachery, conspiracy and a number of suspicious fires. This time the case is his own death, and it lands in front of him without warning, right there on his plate.

Poison for Breakfast is a stand-alone mystery suitable for all ages. It is not part of a series, so a reader can begin here with no earlier books behind them.

The book is also a work of philosophy, a kind of writing that few people enjoy, and it sits oddly beside Snicket's other titles. Its approach differs from his earlier books as well as from most others a reader might pick up. Snicket narrates as the investigator, and the tone is dry, wry and a little suspicious.

Snicket takes no pleasure in the dreadful task of solving the case, but he has no choice in the matter. The question of what happened, and what it means, stays with him from the first page. Reading it is an odd, thoughtful, darkly comic experience, closer to a puzzle turned over slowly than to a chase.