Artemis Fowl

Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl is a heist story for 10 year olds in which the twelve-year-old doing the planning is the one you are meant to worry about.

What happens

Artemis Fowl the Second is white as a vampire from too many hours at a screen, sitting outside a cafe in Ho Chi Minh City in the heat, waiting for an informant who is late. Beside him is Butler, an enormous man who calls him sir.

Artemis is after a book. Not any book. The fairies' own book, which he is fairly sure exists, and which he intends to use to help himself to a great deal of fairy gold.

So far, so cold-blooded. Then you find out why.

His father's ship went down almost a year ago and nobody has found him. His mother has not left her darkened bedroom since. On a bad afternoon she looks at her son and tells him she does not know who he is.

Meanwhile, a long way underground, Captain Holly Short is late for work and about to be shouted at. She is the first female officer in Recon, which her purple-faced commander has never quite forgiven her for, and she is quietly running low on magic.

You can probably see where these two are heading.

The fun of it is the tone. The narrator is completely deadpan and makes fun of absolutely everyone. Leprechaun turns out to be short for Lower Elements Police Reconnaissance. Goblins are hopeless. Butler orders a sedan and a doctor with the same calm.

Artemis is not a nice boy and the book never pretends he is. He blackmails a sprite who has drunk herself into a terrible state, he lies without blinking, and what he is planning is a kidnapping. Some children find an unapologetic villain-ish hero thrilling. Others find him genuinely off-putting, and that is a fair response to him.

The mother scenes are the tender spot rather than the crime. A parent who does not recognise her child is a hard thing to read at any age, and it happens early enough that you will know quickly whether it suits.

What to read next

If you've got a reader who loves a clever child running rings round the adults, there is more of it in Half Moon Investigations, where twelve-year-old Fletcher Moon has a laminated detective's badge, a network of playground informants and a very high opinion of himself.