Artemis Fowl and the Eternity Code

Artemis Fowl is thirteen, a criminal mastermind, and the owner of a new supercomputer called the C Cube, which he has built from stolen fairy technology. The machine could endanger humans and fairies alike. He plans only to show it to Jon Spiro, an American businessman with ties to the Chicago mob, and brings his bodyguard Butler along.

The meeting goes badly. Spiro wants the C Cube for himself, and he needs Artemis to open its protected Eternity Code. Artemis is now a player in a contest where someone else sets the rules.

To recover the machine, he has to turn to the people he has wronged before. Holly Short, a captain in the fairy police, is one of them. So are Foaly, a centaur technician, and Mulch Diggums, a dwarf.

The action shifts among Ireland (at Fowl Manor), Chicago and Haven, the fairy city kept out of sight. This is the third Artemis Fowl novel, after The Arctic Incident and before The Opal Deception. The pace is fast and the tone comic, with a heist at its centre and a boy genius who must ask his old enemies for help.