Lemony Snicket will release a short story collection

Lemony Snicket fans can now look forward to more tales set in the world of “All the Wrong Questions.” 

Snicket published the second book in his “Questions” series – “When Did You See Her Last” – earlier this month. Now he says that he will publish a short story collection this April (April 1, or April Fool’s Day, to be precise) titled “File Under 13: Suspicious Incidents,” which will be a group of 13 shorter mysteries all set in the same universe as “Questions.”

Publishers Weekly writer Sally Lodge asked Snicket if it was difficult to adapt to writing short stories after writing his novels.

“It is said that a novel is a love affair and a short story is a kiss in the dark from a stranger,” Snicket (also known as writer Daniel Handler) told her. “I’ve never been good at a kiss in the dark from a stranger, so as with hopeless romantics I stumbled a few times in my embraces.” 

Graphic novelist Seth (also known as Gregory Gallant), illustrator of the earlier “Questions” books, will also be illustrating “13.”

The “Questions” series, which began last year with the publication of the book “Who Could That Be at This Hour?,” shares a setting with Snicket’s bestselling “A Series of Unfortunate Events” books. The “Unfortunate Events” series chronicles the adventures of the Baudelaire orphans, with Snicket, the narrator, hinting darkly at his own involvement throughout the story. The “Questions” series is a prequel to the “Unfortunate Events” books and focuses on Snicket’s childhood.

Snicket says that two more books are planned for the “Questions” quartet.

When asked what inspired him to pen “13,” Snicket told Publishers Weekly that it was a combination of “a lifelong appreciation of Donald J. Sobol [creator of the Encyclopedia Brown series] along with the sneaking suspicion that while the large boulders of treachery were rolling around Lemony Snicket in Stain’d-By-The-Sea, there were dastardly pebbles rattling alongside.”