"Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code" by Eoin Colfer

Yup. I read book 3 of Artemis Fowl. Imagine a heist movie, as a book.

Basically, Artemis cobbles together a computer from various stolen bits of fairy technology. Then he uses it in shady business dealings with an American electronics tycoon. Unfortunately, this goes sideways, and the tycoon guy's henchmen end up stealing the computer. Since it's made out of stolen fairy tech, the fairies want it. So does Artemis. Basically, the computer is a MacGuffin.

Artemis gets enough character development in this one to become someone you could actually like in real life. He even |seriously considers not being a criminal mastermind, and going legitimate like his father wants|.

Mulch Diggums seems to be unable to come up with good pseudonyms. I mean, really? Mo Diggens? (He had a similar bad pseudonym in the last one, but I can't remember it.) Of course, since we're pulling off a heist, he gets brought along, since he can go into human dwellings without permission (due to him not actually caring if he loses his magic or not, since he already lost it). The protagonists pull some extremely clever tricks to get Holly around the "fairies-can't-enter-human-buildings-without-losing-their-magic" thing.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T, probably. It'd be hard to make a book about a single heist into an entire game, though. 

I'm going to give this one 4 stars, like the last one.

Favorite lines:

    The sarcasm made a slight whistling noise as it flew over Loafers' head. 

    Page 131.

(Endnote: I laughed so hard over that ending. |Artemis got his memories erased by the fairies, who are absolutely positive that the good influence of his newly-reformed father and his never-evil mother will stop him from becoming a criminal mastermind again. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. Artemis decides to become a criminal mastermind again, discovers safeguards he'd planted so he could get his memories back, thinks he's the victim of a conspiracy, and declares his past self to be his enemy. I seriously hope he gets the memories back in book 4, because I liked Artemis-with-character-development better than Artemis-with-all-his-character-development-erased.| Sorry for the uber-spoiler-tag, but I wanted to say that and it's a huuuuuuge spoiler. Hey, my endnote was about the ending!)