Ethan Murphy and the Quest for the Minal
by Anita Mishra
Hi! Do you have a favorite kind of game? I really love card games. The main character of this book likes puzzles and crosswords and riddles. At the beginning of this story, his aunt is kidnapped and Ethan is sent on a perilous quest following clues that his deceased father left him to save his aunt.
Ethan lives with his mother in a very ordinary neighborhood. He does not like thinking about his father and prefers to think about him as “the man who left his family.” One day, his grandfather calls him to solve a series of riddles that Ethan’s father left behind to discover an ancient treasure called the Minal. Ethan’s aunt had been kidnapped after trying to solve the riddles herself and was being held for ransom by the kidnappers. Their price was the Minal. It seems that everyone is after it! Ethan agrees to go on the journey and sets out. He has two partners with him: an older boy named Steve, and a girl who is about his age (13 years old) named Grace. Along the way, they go scuba diving to the ocean floor, meet old friends, and old enemies. And at the end is a shocking discovery that changes everything!
There are a few things I would change about this book. The characters were a bit inconsistent. For example, at first the mom was worried about Ethan going on the journey alone, but then she had no problems with letting him go and take a two-hour taxi drive by himself. Also, I got a little confused about the character’s names. In one sentence, a character would be referred to as “Grandfather,” and in the next sentence, he would be referred to as “Charles Murphy.” As the book went on, these inconsistencies got better. Besides these few things, this book was pretty good.
I really liked the big twist at the end! I’m not going to say what it was so as not to spoil the book. I never saw it coming – and I usually do see these twists before they happen!
This is a very unique book. I have never read any book like it. If you enjoy riddles and mystery books, then you will enjoy this one.
Will Ethan be able to solve the riddles, find the Minal, and save his aunt? Or will he fail his assignment and end up kidnapped, too? As I always say, read the book to find out!
A few helpful things I like to say about the books I read:
“Run and Get Mom” (how I describe the scariness factor – zero being not scary at all and five being majorly scary): 1
“Yucky-Lovey Stuff” (how I describe the romance factor – zero having no yucky-lovey parts in it and five having major yucky-lovey parts): 1
I give this book 3 ½ wands.
The inconsistencies at the beginning threw me off a little bit. I was surprised and delighted to find out that, as the book progressed, the writing got better and better. One of my favorite traits about Ethan is his loyalty. He would never give up because a task was too hard when his family’s and friends’ lives were at stake!
Source: Review Copy