THE FOWL TWINS GET WHAT THEY DESERVE

Artemis Fowl’s preteen sibs have it out with archnemesis Lord Teddy Bleedham-Drye one last time.

Or so it would seem, though, considering Lord Teddy’s fondness for clones and the various nonpermanent fatalities in earlier episodes, nothing should be taken for granted. In a plot aptly framed as “a big bang, followed by a series of smaller bangs, then another big bang”—many of which turn out to be epic gaseous blasts or, to use the delighted Beckett’s term, “fartsplosions”—the evil genius’s latest (as the omniscient narrator puts it) “elaborate and unnecessarily complicated” revenge scheme pits young “aspiring mastermind” Myles and his action-loving brother, aided by diminutive but capable blue-skinned pixel (pixie-elf) Lazuli Heitz and the ghosts of a large number of indignant Bleedham-Dryes whom Lord Teddy has murdered over the years, against first a goblin hit squad then, climactically, an army of fireball-shooting goblins. Generous measures of banter and villainous gloating grease the wheels as well as ridiculous contrivances that pull the twins from any number of obviously hopeless pickles on the way to their hard-won triumph. In an epilogue set in Ho Chi Minh City, Colfer closes another series arc by dropping in a tantalizing revelation about Lazuli’s hidden parentage. Magical cast members come in a variety of colors; human ones read as White.

Any yarn with the phrase “pinwheeling flatulence juggernaut” is a must-read, and not just for fans of Fowl play.