"Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident" by Eoin Colfer

Ayep, book 2 of Artemis Fowl, and all the major characters from Book 1 are back.

We have Artemis Fowl, the now-thirteen-year-old evil genius. We have his butler, Butler. We have Captain Holly Short, the fairy Artemis kidnapped in Book 1. We have Commander Root, a grumpy fairy police guy. We have Foaly, a centaur tech guy who wears a literal tinfoil hat. And last but not least or maybe least, we have Mulch Diggums, a kleptomaniac dwarf who's basically a walking fart joke.

(I don't particularly like Mulch Diggums.)

Anyway, this installment is about Artemis trying to get his kidnapped father back from the Russian mafia. And also about the assorted fairies having assorted problems with battery smuggling. (Apparently fairies don't do batteries, or something.)

The fairies think Artemis is behind this, so they arrest him. Artemis is not behind it. However, he gets shanghaied into figuring out who's smuggling batteries. Then he shanghais the various fairies (really just Root and Holly) into helping him get his dad back.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T again, for violence (mild and fantasy, again), |Holly's finger getting cut off (don't worry, it gets reattached)|, maybe some swearing (don't remember), and some crude humor (mostly Mulch Diggums-related).

I'm giving this one 4 stars. It didn't grab me like Book 1 did.

 

Favorite lines:

    Artemis avoided other teenagers and resented being sent to school, preferring to spend his time plotting his next crime.

   So, even though his involvement with the goblin uprising during this year was to be traumatic, terrifying, and dangerous, it was probably the best thing that could have happened to him. At least he spent some time outdoors, and got to meet some new people.

    It's a pity most of them were trying to kill him.

    Page -1.

(Endnote: On the actual cover, Holly does have pupils and irises, but for some reason they don't show up terribly well in the image. Also, Artemis has a cool scarf.)