Children's Fiction: Notwithstanding international acclaim, Eoin Colfer's fourth Artemis Fowl book, The Opal Deception, was not among the recent Bisto Book of the Year prizewinners. That's the fate of mid-series novels.
The Fowl books are fast, sci-fi fantasies that combine techno-leprechauns and die-hard fairies with crime-thriller plots: Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming meet Patricia Lynch and Eilís Dillon. Critical debate is divided between celebrating Artemis's Irish challenge to Harry Potter - which some see as postcolonial one-upmanship - and regretting his postmodern, deracinated globalism.
While Artemis's dark tones are undercut by Colfer's wit and humour, another of his futuristic fantasies, The Supernaturalist, is distinctly dystopian. Some wish Colfer had never abandoned the real-world adventures of his first books, Benny and Babe and Benny and Omar, tales with the unmistakeable tang of contemporary Wexford about them. Many recall his teen update of the Faust legend, The Wish List, and younger readers have a special affection for Ed's Funny Feet. Colfer is brilliantly versatile, and has proven himself capable of treating serious emotions seriously.
His most recent offering, Half Moon Investigations, returns to a recognisable cyber present, but in whodunit form. We're in Fletcher Moon's hands - Half Moon to friends and enemies. He's short, he's 12 and he's a hard-boiled detective, with a badge and a manual to prove it. Lugubrious as his Chandleresque forebears, he has seen it all. He realises that detectives no longer command Holmesian respect, and that human beings behave badly, most of the time. Yet he's driven by some lonely impulse of delight.
He and Red Sharkey (friend since their creche days, and one of a light-fingered, lawless family) are accused of arson, and the circumstantial evidence is strong. If Half Moon is to escape serious charges and retain street cred, and if the Sharkey family is to be put right, the culprit must be apprehended.
So Moon accesses police files, dons a disguise, and, in a suspense-laden, Agatha-Christie denouement, fingers his suspect with maximum publicity. Has he gone too far? The reader will decide.
This is self-conscious, cliché-mocking writing. It says that to be successful, a private eye needs more than the staples of the genre, deduction, evidence and intuition. The plot is brazenly progressed at one stage by means of that commonplace, the overheard conversation. The pink-clad jeunes étudiantes, the frivolous and vexatious female brat-pack, are a triumphant PC travesty. When the death of Red's mother is mentioned, the tone turns dangerously bathetic. Our astute sleuth is disarmingly aware of his limitations, unlike his alter ego, Artemis. Colfer's risk-taking is usually successful. This unputdownable book is ironic, not empathic. Repartee, irreverence, a zippy pace, and suspense will leave readers wanting more. I feel another series coming on.
Mary Shine Thompson is research co-ordinator and lecturer at St Patrick's College, Drumcondra. Her recent publications include Treasure Islands: Studies in Children's Literature, co-edited with Celia Keenan (Four Courts) and The Selected Plays of Austin Clarke (Colin Smythe)
Half Moon Investigations By Eoin Colfer. Puffin, 311pp. £12.99