The Job of the Wasp

On page 114, about two-thirds of the way through this little novel, the narrator remarks, "The whole evening had taken a dark turn, and I feared for the worst." It's a sentence that could appear in almost every paragraph in the book. There are dark turns after dark turns, but somehow, and this is the fun and beauty of the book, the narrator carries a sense of bland surprise that the worst, yet again, is still to come. He's not a pollyanna—he's capable of scheming and dark acts himself—but there's a sprightly naivete to his storytelling that makes the whole thing both horrible and a little delightful. Imagine Lemony Snicket written for adults, and you get a little of the idea.