Thirteen-year-old Lemony Snicket begins his apprenticeship with S. Theodora Markson of the secretive V.F.D. in the tiny dot of a town called Stain'd By The Sea, where he helps investigate the theft of a statue.
Nine-year-old Nicholas Benedict, a boy without parents and afflicted with an unfortunate nose and narcolepsy, is sent to a new orphanage where he encounters vicious bullies, selfish adults, strange circumstances, and a mystery that could change his life forever.
While visiting the seaport town of Ragged Cove, Massachusetts, the Alden children find the ship's log of the Flying Cloud, shipwrecked in 1869, supposedly during a mutiny.