Supernatural: Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer

Artemis Fowl is the first in a series by Eoin Colfer that follows the adventures (misadventures?) of twelve-year-old criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl.  The Fowls are a powerful and wealthy crime family, but since the disappearance of Artemis's father, things have been a bit shaky for the family: while still quite wealthy, they have gone from billionaire status to millionaire status, and Artemis's mother has had a mental breakdown and will not leave the attic of their mansion.  Genius that he is, Artemis concocts a plan to renew his family's wealth, plan that involves kidnapping a fairy for ransom.  With the help of his bodyguard, Artemis tracks down and translates a copy of the Book, the rule book for all fairy folk, who are known as the People.  The People include fairies, sprites, goblins, leprechauns (really LEPrecon, a sort of police force), dwarves, and trolls.  Their main objective is to keep their existence hidden from humans, or Mud People.  Artemis plans to use this to his advantage and collect a ransom of one ton of gold. Enter Holly Short, the first female LEPrecon officer.  After an encounter with a troll reveals that Holly is in desperate need of renewing her magic, she is ordered to complete the Ritual, collecting a seed in a special place and then returning it to the earth.  Using information in the Book, Artemis is able to capture Holly as she attempts to perform the Ritual, and his master plan begins.  Holly, however, is no pushover, and her Commander, Root, is determined to get her back alive.  The fairies perform a time-stop on Fowl Manor and are ultimately driven to send in a bio-bomb that should kill every living thing in Fowl Manor, including Artemis Fowl, thus allowing the fairies to enter the Manor and retrieve their gold.  For the first time in history, though, someone is able to escape the time-stop: the genius Artemis figures out that by simply falling asleep, he and his two partners can escape unharmed and keep the gold.  A brief attack of conscience leads Artemis to return part of the gold to the fairies, but he manages to get Holly to cure his mother and still comes away with approximately 15 million dollars worth of gold ingots. He has, however, made a formidable enemy is Holly Short and is far from satisfying his thirst for wealth and the reestablishment of his family's former glory, so there is no doubt that Colfer will share further adventures involving Fowl and the fairies in subsequent books.

I found Artemis Fowl to be a quick and enjoyable read.  Colfer laces humor throughout the novel and creates a cast compelling characters: Artemis, Butler, Holly, Root, Foaly, and Cudgeon.  His fairy world is also well-developed.  In the background, Colfer touches on environmental issues, but this isn't fully developed, at least not in this first book of the series.  He also addresses a number of themes, including friendship and loyalty, family, ambition, women's rights, and greed. With the title character being only twelve years old, the novel may appeal to a younger crowd, but the long chapters may be daunting for more reluctant readers.

References

Colfer, E. (2001). Artemis Fowl. New York: Scholastic.