Young Tom, the seventh son of a seventh son, starts work as an apprentice for the village spook, whose job is to protect ordinary folk from "ghouls, boggarts, and all manner of wicked beasties."

After passing her third-year apprentice tests, Maddie is called home to Castle Araluen where a group of masked anarchists are organizing a coup to overthrow her family's succession.

"The mysterious Red Fox Clan, a group of anarchists all donning fox masks, have threatened Castle Araluen and question Princess Cassandra and Madelyn's succession to the throne. Will they succeed in unseating Cassandra and Madelyn and take the throne forthemselves?"--

The great wizard Flaxfield's death leaves his twelve-year-old apprentice Sam half-trained, but when other wizards gather and debate his fate Sam, not knowing whom to trust, leaves with only his dragon, Starback, for company, unaware of the perils he must face.

On a mission to pay the ransom of a new ally, apprentice Will and his friends find themselves in a desert wasteland awash with enemies.

Tom and the Spook return from Greece to find that their home, including the Spook's precious library of knowledge, has been burned to the ground, and that their battle against the denizens of the dark must continue.

Tom is reunited with his mother and must return to Greece to face a new and terrible threat from the dark forces, and a momentous decision must be made, causing a serious rift between Tom and the Spook that threatens to separate them forever.

Tom is dismayed when his master decrees that they will spend the winter on Anglezarke Moor, but he soon discovers the reason for the decision as they tangle with two witches and struggle to keep a mage from resurrecting an ancient evil.

Young apprentice Lemony Snicket asks all the wrong questions while trying to solve a new case involving a missing girl.

Apprentice Tom and the Spook for whom he works flee to Ireland, where a powerful witch has joined forces with the dark mages trying to call forth ancient powers to destroy Tom.