When Asa Pike, a Bloor's Academy student with the ability to change into a beast at dusk, goes missing, twelve-year-old Charlie Bone suspects a new classmate, the magically gifted Dagobert Endless, of foul play.
Charlie and his magically gifted friends and relatives work together to rescue Billy Raven, a young orphan, from a mysterious and dangerous couple who have adopted him.
As their outrageous misfortune continues, the Baudelaire orphans are shipped off to a miserable boarding school, where they befriend the two Quagmire triplets and find that they have been followed by the dreaded Count Olaf.