The Wide Window is the third book in the tragically compelling A Series of Unfortunate Events, finding the Baudelaire orphans relocated to the peculiar, gloomy town of Lake Lachrymose, where they are placed in the care of their new, thoroughly neurotic guardian, Aunt Josephine. Josephine Anwhistle is a grammar fanatic with an almost phobic fear of virtually everything in the world—from doorknobs to telephone calls—and she lives in a precarious house perched on a cliff edge overlooking the perpetually stormy lake. The children’s brief respite is, of course, interrupted by the relentless, villainous Count Olaf, who appears in disguise as 'Captain Sham,' a ridiculously cheerful, one-legged sea captain with a fake wooden leg. Olaf quickly begins to manipulate the easily frightened Josephine, aiming to coerce her into surrendering the Baudelaire fortune. The children must use their respective skills—Violet's inventiveness, Klaus's research, and Sunny's biting and climbing abilities—to expose Olaf's ruse, solve a cryptic, faked suicide note, and escape a watery, miserable fate. Snicket delivers another installment filled with literary lamentations, dark irony, and the children's constant battle against adult incompetence and the overwhelming presence of evil.
