Having escaped Count Olaf's clutches for now, the three Baudelaire siblings, Violent, Klaus and Sunny, arrive on the shores of Lake Lachrymose to stay with their latest guardian, Aunt Josephine. Sadly, though kind and well-meaning, Aunt Josephine is terrified of absolutely everything: she will not heat her radiators, use the telephone or cook food, just in case those ordinary tasks prove fatal. Worse still, she gives Violet a doll called Pretty Penny and obsessively corrects the children's grammar. It is not long before local sailor Captain Sham, a thinly-disguised Count Olaf, gulls Aunt Josephine with the idea of a surprise for the children. Aunt Josephine suddenly goes missing that night, leaving a highly ungrammatical note, and the Baudelaire's must once again fight their way out of Count Olaf's wicked schemes. Finally, after sailing across the Lachrymose Lake in Hurricane Herman, a nasty moment in the Curdled Cave and an unpleasant encounter with the Lachrymose Leeches for Aunt Josephine, they unmask Captain Sham as Count Olaf. Olaf slips through their grasp once more but evilly promises to find them again, as he will in The Miserable Mill.
The third installment, The Wide Window, sees the Baudelaire siblings placed with a new distant relative - their Aunt Josephine - a second cousin's sister in law. Aunt Josephine is a grammar fiend and terrified of life. She won't touch the doorknobs in case they shatter, she doesn't cook hot meals because she could burn herself, she spends her time freezing because she's scared the radiator will explode, she won't pick up the phone for fear of being electrocuted, her lists are endless and lead you to wonder how she's managed to live so far. It sounds utterly depressing but then I guess that's the point.
And yet for all her fear, one meeting with "Captain Sham" sees her smitten and unwilling to listen to any such nonsense that Captain Sham is really Count Olaf. Honestly Josephine is easily the worst relative so far and that includes Count Olaf because at least he was honest (to the Badelaire's anyway) about his intentions - - they might not have known what he was going to do but they were sure he was up to something. Aunt Josephine though is a horrible person. She is ready to sell them out for the sake of herself. Why agree to take the children in at all? She abandons them at the first sight of trouble. It's not like she didn't know they were being pursued by Count Olaf. She said Mr Poe warned her.
So Count Olaf threatens her and she caves, fakes her death and wills the children to Captain Sham. The kids figure out that her note is really a code and track her down to a cave. Where they find she's planning to live in a cave and they can either live with her there or go live with Captain Sham. I mean really?! She could've just faked her death without leaving them in the care of Captain Sham. At least then she wouldn't have been such an utter bitch.
Like usual, the children have to save themselves, unable and unwilling to trust the adults in their lives. This time, Sunny saves the day - biting through Captain Sham's fake leg and revealing the dreaded eye tattoo of Count Olaf.
Like the first two books, the action is fast paced and riddled with the sad and depressing story that is the Baudelaire's life. The bit at the end about them at least having each other wasn't enough to cheer me up for all it was a nice sentiment. 3.5 stars.
