Eoin Colfer's The Reluctant Assassin

My son, Evan, really enjoyed Airman and the Artemis Fowl books so I knew he would jump at the chance to read The Reluctant Assassin, the first in Eoin Colfer’s new WARP series.

“WARP, which stands for ‘Witness Anonymous Relocation Program,’ is an action-adventure series full of mayhem, magic, and murder–with a villain to die for,” said Eoin Colfer. “I think of this series as Oliver Twist meets The Matrix.”

Yeah, Evan’s all over that. Here’s what he thought:

Through the magic of time travel, The Reluctant Assassin is set in both Victorian and modern day London. The adventure starts off fast, dropping readers straight into Victorian London and an attempted murder by Albert Garrick and his (reluctant) assistant, Riley.

Meanwhile, Chevron Savano is feeling the backlash of a botched mission, stuck on daycare duty for the FBI’s Witness Anonymous Relocation Program (WARP) program in modern day London.

Time travel ensues, Riley meets Chevron, and the pair tries to rid themselves of Garrick’s lunacy in cooperation with government agencies.

As the story unfolds, fans of Colfer will recognize familiar characters such as Otto Malarky, who we first met in Airman on the island of Little Saltee. It took me awhile to figure out why his name sounded familiar to me. Turns out, Otto served his time in prison and returned to terrorize London with his gang known as the Rams.

With witty remarks peppered throughout, the books are very reminiscent of the deadpan Artemis Fowl series and Eoin Colfer’s writing style quickly sucked me into another of his fantastic stories. Fans of Colfer are sure to enjoy this new novel.

The publisher provided a copy of this book for review purposes.