The Penultimate Peril
book by Lemony Snicket
Book the Twelfth: The Penultimate Peril is the twelfth novel in the children's novel series A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket.
Plot
The Baudelaire orphans, Violet, Klaus and Sunny are travelling with pregnant V.F.D. member Kit Snicket to Hotel Denouement, the last safe place for the noble side of V.F.D to gather. She tells them that, prior to V.F.D.’s gathering in two days, they will be disguised as concierges to observe the mysterious 'J.S.,’ in order to identify them as a volunteer or a villain of V.F.D. The hotel's managers are identical twins Frank and Ernest—Frank is a volunteer, but Ernest is on the opposing side as a villain.
During their first day of disguised employment, the Baudelaires split up to assist the hotel's guests—Violet assists Esmé Squalor and Carmelita Spats by bringing them a harpoon gun with the help of a manager, Klaus assists Charles and Sir (the owners of the Lucky Smells Lumbermill) by escorting them to the sauna while also hanging "birdpaper" outside a window for one of the managers, and Sunny assists Hal (an employee at Heimlich Hospital) and another manager in locking a V.F.D device onto a door of the laundry room, converting it into a Vernacularly Fastened Door, while meeting with Vice-Principal Nero, Ms. Bass and Mr. Remora (teachers at Prufrock Preparatory School)—all the guests discuss the mysterious J.S. It was later revealed that Hugo, Collette, and Kevin (the "freaks" from Caligari Carnival) spied on them during these events.
Together the siblings discuss which manager asked for what, as each of them ran into a separate manager. Remembering a favorite poem of their father’s, Klaus concludes that Carmelita Spats requested the harpoon gun to shoot down a bird carrying the sugar bowl, as Sunny mentioned that Hal and a manager were discussing the sugar bowl (an object both volunteers and villains are seeking for unknown reasons) and the Medusoid Mycelium (a deadly fungus parasite they encounter in the previous book)—the bird's body would then land on the paper, and the sugar bowl would fall into a chute leading the laundry room, which is where the Vernacularly Fastened Door led to.
Shortly after his proposal, one of the managers encounters them and reveals himself as Dewey Denouement, the third of the secretly three brothers and the one who helped Sunny (Frank helped Violet and Ernest helped Klaus). He has created a book cataloging all information of the V.F.D. and tells them that a pool reflection of the hotel is the actual safe place, as the hotel's words and structure were designed backward to reflect the actual words onto the pool—beneath the pool is an underwater catalog containing crucial information concerning V.F.D. They are then encountered by Jerome Squalor and Justice Strauss, who have joined V.F.D. after believing messages being sent to J.S. were being addressed to them.
“The Penultimate Peril” enters the record as book by Lemony Snicket. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Penultimate, Peril and book can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2604058. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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