Dear reader,

If you were searching for the next book you will read and have found this one, then the first thing you should know is that the book you are holding is the penultimate book you should put down. This book tells the penultimate chronicle of the Baudelaire orphans' lives and includes a penultimate dose of misery, despair, and unhappiness.

Surely, the penultimate things you would want to read about are not a speargun, a sunbathing spot on a rooftop, two mysterious initials, three missing triplets, a notorious villain, and an awful curry.

Penultimate things are the first things to be avoided, so allow me to suggest that you place this penultimate book at the top of your list of books to avoid, and find another penultimate book, like the penultimate book of someone else's chronicle or a chronicle that contains other penultimate things, so that this penultimate book is not the last book you will read.

With all due respect,

Lemony Snicket