Look, don't judge me, but in order to fund my habit, I've been dealing Snicket to other addicts. It's just until I get my head together and my feet under me, y'know?

A whole lot of moral quandaries plague our heroes in this installment, as Violet and Klaus contemplate whether it is justified to fight fire with fire when the people you're setting on fire are truly horrible and have kidnapped your sister. Hence the clever name. The Slippery Slope. because it's a slippery slope when you start doing bad things for good reasons. Get it? I thought it was clever anyway. Terrible mountains, ruined headquarters, snow scouts, cakesniffers, salmon, cookery, tired eagles and a few villains who scare even Olaf. We've left the repetitive, formulaic early adventures well behind but many familiar elements are still in play, while mysteries abound and misfortune is always just a paragraph or two ahead.