Eoin Colfer: Artemis Fowl: The Artic Incident

By MARGIE THOMSON

The eagerly awaited sequel to the book that kids aged 11 and up were riveted by last year.

Artemis Fowl introduced us to the brightest, most evil criminal mastermind in the world, in which the eponymous 12-year-old anti-hero was involved in nothing less than the theft of fairy gold from the hidden kingdom beneath the Earth's surface.

Here, both fairies and their erstwhile foe are back, this time in a bizarre allegiance to rescue Artemis' father from the clutches of the Russian mafia.

Colfer has tapped a strain of energy in his own imagination that jolts forth like pure caffeine: the pace doesn't let up for a sentence and, along with the technical wizardry (the fairies with their weapons and equipment; Artemis with his computer know-how) comes a deepening of Artemis' psychology.

Evil he may be, but this latest exploit is motivated by love - a most unusual predicament for the ruthless boy.

Puffin

$19.95