Manga Math: The Lost Key

I have a family member who is a struggling reader that has been begging me for some Manga options. I thought I'd check out this series to see if I could combine math and his love of Manga. After reading The Lost Key: A Mystery with Whole Numbers (Manga Math Mysteries (Paperback)) I'm a little on the fence.

The themes of learning self-control, trying not to be drawn into conflict when it can be avoided, etc. were good. I liked trying to get the kids to use math to try to solve the problem of items going missing from their training school. However, at times it all seemed a bit contrived. Most early readers aren't deep and the plots and characters can be flat. This however, seemed more than normally ackward. I also questioned if a child reading the book would actually work through the math or just wait for the characters to give them the answer and not really care how the problem was solved.

My suggestion would be to try these from the library first to see how your child likes them if they are interested in Manga and you want to see if you can introduce some math with the manga reading time. I'm not sure this meets my needs at this point.