Richard Egielski

I very much enjoyed the previous two books in this series, which chronicled the magical adventures of Lewis Barnavelt, but we get a bit of a change of pace with this third novel in the series. Bellairs shifts focus to put Rose Rita and Mrs. Zimmerman in the spotlight for their very own magical escapade while Lewis is away at summer camp. The story begins when Mrs. Zimmerman inherits the estate of her crazy old cousin, which seems harmless enough until we add a magical ring into the mix. Mrs. Zummerman is, of course, a logical sceptic, even as a trained magician, so she assumes that the ring is another of her cousin's made up stories, but this proves to almost be her downfall as her childhood rival gets a hold of the ring and turns it against her. Bellairs has never shied away from having truely frightening and realistic villains, but Gert Bigger is a keen example of how jealousy and vindictiveness can make a person go bad. At the crux of the story Rose Rita and Mrs. Zimmerman are in real danger and it seems like Gert will go through with her plans to kill them both, but thankfully her own greed and the tricky way that magic works ends up being her undoing and our protagonists escape unharmed. Will we ever know if the magic ring really belonged to King Solomon? Probably not, but it is definitely for the best that Mrs. Zimmerman melted it down and got rid of it for good, as the spirit in the ring was clearly a negative influence on its wearer.… (more)