A Series of Unfortunate Events

The Penultimate Peril (12)

Condition: New, Hardcover

Author: Lemony Snicket

Illustrator: Brett Helquist

The Penultimate Peril is the twelfth novel in the book series A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket.

Plot Summary

The book starts off where The Grim Grotto left off. The Baudelaires are traveling with Kit Snicket in a taxi. The distraught and pregnant Kit drives them to the Hotel Denouement and after serving them some brunch, she abruptly leaves, giving them concierge uniforms to use as disguises in the hotel. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny then start their first day of work after being introduced to the hotel by Frank and Ernest, the identical twin managers. The Baudelaires are expected to serve and help the people of the Hotel, as a front so they can be flâneurs, and in particular learn whether the mysterious "J.S." is not helping V.F.D. or its enemies.

Three bells suddenly start ringing at once, leaving the three Baudelaires no choice but to split up. Violet goes to the rooftop sunbathing salon, where she encounters Esme Squalor, Count Olaf's villainous girlfriend, Carmelita Spats (a spoiled girl who Esme is taking care of), and Geraldine Julienne, a Daily Punctilio reporter. She eavesdrops on Esme and Geraldine discussing a cocktail party which J.S. will try to spoil, but is cut off when Carmelita orders Violet to get her a harpoon gun. Violet retrieves the weapon from Frank who, oddly, asks if she is who he thinks she is.

Klaus goes to a room for people in the sawmill industry, and encounters Sir and Charles (from The Miserable Mill). He has to take them to the sauna, down the hall. He props the door open to spy, and overhears them talk about a party on Thursday, and someone with the initials of J.S. However, Ernest enters the room and in asks Klaus to hang a flypaper-like roll of sticky paper called bird paper outside the window, in order to catch and trap any falling birds. He asks the same question of Klaus as Frank asked of Violet.

Sunny goes to a room for educational people, and finds Vice Principal Nero, Mr. Remora, and Mrs. Bass all from The Austere Academy. She leads them to an Indian restaurant in the hotel, run by Hal from The Hostile Hospital. When Sunny is sent to fetch a napkin, she hides in the kitchen and listens in to a conversation by Hal and either Frank or Ernest. They too discuss J.S., but then spot Sunny. Dewey gives her a lock to create a Vernacularly Fastened Door and has her put it on the laundry room door. The laundry room has a vent through which something can fall and - if the lock is on the door - that something will be protected. Frank or Ernest also asks Sunny if she is who he thinks she is.

That night, the Baudelaires puzzle over how Frank and Ernest can be in three places at the same time (all of their trips happened at the same time). Finally, Klaus deduces that a crow will bring the sugar bowl to the Hotel. It will be shot down by the harpoon gun, fall onto the flypaper, and drop the sugar bowl into the laundry room vent. All of a sudden, they see a man descending from the ceiling of the Hotel. They think it is Ernest or Frank, but it turns out to be Dewey Denouement, the third triplet, whom was the one Sunny encountered. Klaus had encountered Ernest, who wanted the bird paper hung to catch the crow for the villains. And Violet had encountered Frank, who slyly tried to tell Violet not to give the harpoon gun to Carmelita by saying "Do you really think it’s a good idea for a little girl to have a harpoon gun?" Dewey tells them that there is a duplicate of the Hotel at the bottom of the pond, containing a catalogue of all the secrets of V.F.D., which he has spent his entire life collecting. Then Justice Strauss and Jerome Squalor, who both believe that they are the J.S. being contacted, arrive by taxi. Justice Strauss has been working with the High Court to help the Baudelaires, and Jerome - who also felt bad over how he treated the orphans - has written a book on the matter called Odious Lusting After Finance, in order to bring more attention to Olaf's misdeeds. The High Court justices are coming to put Count Olaf and the other evil people of V.F.D. on trial and so - on Thursday - all of the noble people will arrive to give evidence.

Re-entering the hotel, they encounter Count Olaf who says that the Hook-handed man and Fiona stole his submarine. Hugo, Colette and Kevin, the three carnival freaks who joined Olaf in The Carnivorous Carnival, all arrive. Olaf also hints that the Baudelaire's own parents were not noble, and that they had something to do with a box of poison darts in an opera. Dewey tells Olaf of the catalogue he has made, which prompts Esmé to comment that he must already know what is inside the sugar bowl, and why it is so important. Olaf takes the harpoon gun from Carmelita and threatens Dewey. The Baudelaires shield him and approach Olaf as he counts to ten; however he is interrupted by the coughing of Mr. Poe, who has come from his room to see what is happening. Count Olaf quickly shoves the gun into the Baudelaire's hands. The Baudelaires accidentally drop the gun to the ground. It discharges, and a harpoon hits Dewey, inflicting a fatal wound. As he dies he thinks of Kit Snicket who is the love of his life, and is now carrying his baby.

Dewey stumbles out of the hotel and the Baudelaires watch as he sinks into the pond. Justice Strauss's taxi driver - an enigmatic man smoking a cigarette - talks to them, but they cannot tell whether he is a volunteer or a villain, and they realize they cannot leave the scene of the crime. As the entire hotel is awakened, the Baudelaires walk back into the hotel, and the taxi driver drives away. Justice Strauss breaks the ensuing chaos up by saying that the accused must have a legal trial, and the Baudelaires are locked in one room, Count Olaf in another.

It is early Wednesday morning when the Baudelaires go to bed, and they wake in the afternoon where they are returned to the lobby for the trial. Due to a literal reading of the phrase "justice is blind", everyone except the judges are blindfolded. The trial begins and Olaf gives a brief speech where he states his innocence. The Baudelaires, however, are beginning to question their own nobility and morality and so they answer that they are "comparatively innocent". When Justice Strauss stops commenting in sentences, the Baudelaires get suspicious and remove their blindfolds to discover that the other justices are Olaf's compatriots: the man with a beard but no hair, and the woman with hair but no beard. The false judges and Olaf are fleeing with the gagged and bound Justice Strauss and the Baudelaires chase them to the elevator, while telling everyone else to take off their blindfolds.

Realizing that they need to follow Olaf, both to stop him from getting away and because there are authorities at the door of the hotel, the Baudelaires go with him and Justice Strauss in the elevator. He goes first to the laundry room, believing the sugar bowl to be inside. Using three clues, they break in, only to find that the sugar bowl is not there. Angered, Olaf declares that he is going to the roof to get the specimen of Medusoid Mycelium which he will spread through the hotel, killing everyone. He will then escape, by jumping off the roof in a boat. Violet, realizing his plan is foolish, agrees to help. Klaus is surprised that she would do this but Violet knows that they also need an escape route, and going with Olaf may be the only way. Then, Sunny abruptly suggests that they burn down the Hotel, and Olaf agrees.

As the elevator goes up, the Baudelaires use a trick their parents taught them and press all of the buttons so the elevator stops on every floor. This gives them and Justice Strauss an opportunity to warn all of the guests of the fire. However, the other guests are still blindfolded from the trial and Olaf shouts that the fire warning is a fake. The narrative does not reveal which guests believed the Baudelaires and which believed the Count, but hints that some of them died in the fire. It is also stated here that the Baudelaires will not see Esmé or Carmelita again.

On the roof, Klaus reveals that the sugar bowl fell into the pond and not into the laundry room. Here, Violet deduces that Sunny suggested they set the Hotel on fire as a signal so that noble people like Kit, Hector and the Quagmires would cancel the meeting. As Sunny says, "the last safe place is safe no more". Violet makes a chute for the boat to safely make it off the building, and they use the giant spatulas used for flipping sunbathers as oars. Justice Strauss attempts to stop the Baudelaires leaving on the boat, but Sunny bites her hand and makes her let go. The boat floats safely down to the ocean, and the Baudelaires are left "in the same boat" as Count Olaf. Flames engulf the Hotel Denouement, and Justice Strauss is possibly killed in the fire. Count Olaf gets away yet again.

The boat carries Violet, Klaus, Sunny and Olaf away from the burning hotel, setting the scene up for The End.

Series Summary

The series follows the adventures of three siblings, Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire, after their parents were killed in a fire at the family mansion. In The Bad Beginning, they briefly live with a friend of their parents, Mr. Poe, who is the person in charge of the Baudelaire fortune after the Baudelaire parents' deaths, before being sent to live with Count Olaf, whom Mr. Poe describes as either the siblings' "third cousin four times removed, or their fourth cousin three times removed". The siblings discover that he intends to get his hands on the Baudelaire fortune, which awaits Violet, the eldest child, when she turns eighteen. In the first seven books, Olaf, each time in different disguises, follows the children wherever they go so he can get closer to the orphans and steal their fortune. Their roles switch in the eighth through twelfth books, in which the orphans adopt disguises while on the run from the police after being framed by Count Olaf, disguised as Detective Dupin, for the murder of Count Omar (really Jacques Snicket). The Baudelaires routinely try to get help from Mr. Poe, but Poe is always either busy with work, oblivious to the danger Olaf poses, unaware that the disguised Olaf is not who he claims to be or simply thinks the Baudelaires are lying.

Each of the three siblings has a distinctive skill that often helps them during their adventures. Violet is always inventing new things to help them, Klaus is always finding out new information by reading books, and Sunny has extremely sharp teeth that can bite almost anything in two. [4] In later books, Sunny learns how to cook, as she begins to grow to the normal size for her teeth so cooking becomes her primary skill. Sunny originally spoke in single word utterances which are often a variety of incomplete sentences and some short word sentences as well. Their meaning is either disguised by being spelled phonetically (e.g., 'surchmi' in The Slippery Slope), backwards (e.g., 'edasurc' [crusade] in The Carnivorous Carnival) through cultural references (Sunny says: 'Matahari', followed by a definition of 'If I stay, I can spy on them and find out.'), or being written in other languages (e.g., Shalom or Sayonara), but eventually she begins to speak more in complete English sentences, her first possibly being "I'm not a baby" in The Slippery Slope, or "Like me" in The Vile Village.

Lemony Snicket, the author of the stories and the pseudonym of Daniel Handler, is actually a character himself on the periphery of the stories. He follows the Baudelaires, researching and recording their exploits. Bruce Butt noted in 2002 that in each book a letter from Snicket to his editor is included, presented as exciting updates on Snicket's research into the Baudelaire orphans, which Butt considered to be "the slyest aspect of the way this series has been ingeniously promoted". Over the course of the series, the Baudelaires learn some vague information about Snicket and possibly meet him briefly in The Wide Window and The Penultimate Peril.

1. The Bad Beginning
2. The Reptile Room
3. The Wide Window
4. The Miserable Mill
5. The Austere Academy
6. The Ersatz Elevator
7. The Vile Village
8. The Hostile Hospital
9. The Carnivorous Carnival
10. The Slippery Slope
11. The Grim Grotto
12. The Penultimate Peril
13. The End

A Series of Unfortunate Events

The Penultimate Peril (12)