While very little has been revealed about this next to last title in the SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS series, this book does have things getting much worse, an evil Count Olaf, and the Baudelair Orphans losing a contest.

After the sudden death of their parents, the three Baudelaire children must depend on each other and their wits when it turns out that the distant relative who is appointed their guardian is determined to use any means necessary to get their fortune.

Lost at sea, the Baudelaire orphans, along with the evil Count Olaf, wash up on the shore of an island populated by an oddly placid group of inhabitants, and they try to decide whether or not they are truly safe.

In the perilous Mortmain mountains, Klaus and Violet Baudelaire meet another well-read person, who helps them try to rescue Sunny from the villainous Count Olaf and his henchmen as they all near "the last safe place.".

Accidents, evil plots, and general misfortune abound when, in their continuing search for a home, the Beaudelaire orphans are sent to live and work in a sinister lumber mill.

Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire are wisked off to the village of V.F.D. where a council of elders have enacted thousands of rules about the thousands of crows that inhabit the town and are protected by handyman Hector against Count Olaf, who is after the children's fortune.

In this next-to-last chronicle of the lives of the Baudelaire orphans, the siblings pose as concierges at the Hotel Denouement to learn the identities and intentions of certain enemies, encountering characters from their past adventures and pondering the nature of nobility and villainy.