Eoin Colfer: Warp (Book 1) The Reluctant Assassin

OK, so I'm a huge Artemis Fowl fan. Love the books and many of them are waiting on the boys' shelves for them to read when they are older. There's some of his other books that I really enjoyed as well.

This book was hard to finish. I think it's the most black I have ever read from Colfer. I don't mind a nice helping of black in my books, and I appreciate the kind of black in the Artemis Fowl books. But this was a whole 'nother thing.

I'd say it's written for a much older audience than his other books, and certainly, I wouldn't want to be giving it to someone much younger than 14 or 15. He does that thing of his where the adults and caregivers are shadowy impotent figures, which is a fairly common device in children's literature. I think Colfer is really good at creating real but insubstantial 'caretaker' type of characters. But in the world he creates here, there is real death, cruelty and pain. His main characters have to deal with a psychotic superhuman with unresolved parental issues as they time travel between our time and Victorian England.

He does capture the differences between old and new London well. The stench, the ease of transport, the implications of CCTV as well as speech and physical differences are all covered. And the time travel plot device is well constructed: it isn't without flaws and the kind of flaws that do involve real risk taking and have serious consequences.

The two main characters work together realistically, working out their various issues and discovering who they are and where they belong in the world (and time line).

It's well written and has a full on pace. It's stimulating to read. It's harrowing to read, at the same time. Yes, the world is awful and adults let you down. But when the big bad is a psychotic superhuman with no empathy, and you have to pretend to murder someone just to survive... it's moved to a whole new level.

I don't think it should be avoided for these reasons, just not handed to an avid 10 year old Artemis Fowl fan, as though it is the same thing.