When Did You See Her Last? by Lemony Snicket

Lemony Snicket's All the Wrong Questions series continues with his second wrong question, "When did you see her last?"  Snicket and his incompetent chaperon, still in the dying town of Stain'd-by-the-Sea, take on a new case of the missing Cloe Knight.  Snicket's chaperon quickly decides Miss Knight has run away to join the circus, but Snicket is doubtful.  Evil villain Hangfire is still on the loose, and Snicket and his collection of journalist, taxi driving, and statue-stealing friends work to get to the bottom of the mystery, which grows more mysterious all the time.

I felt the same way about this as I felt about this first in the series.  OK, but not quite up to A Series of Unfortunate Events.  Not as clever, not as sharp, not as funny, and not as interesting.  We are slowly learning more things about Snicket and the mysterious organization he works for, but not much.  It is still very much a secret.  We do learn that Snicket has both a brother and a sister, and that his sister is in another city, preforming a task alone which Snicket should have helped her with.

It is revealed that Hangfire is also part of a secret organization, that seems bent on doing evil.  Perhaps a connection to the villains that kept popping up in A Series of Unfortunate Events?

As with last time, I enjoyed all the little asides Lemony Snicket is famous for, but for whatever reason, this series just doesn't work as well.  I still keep reading them because I want to see how much will be revealed about the secret organization. And I am curious: will Beatrice ever make an appearance?  There are two more books in the series to find out.