Friday Reads: WARP - The Reluctant Assassin by Eoin Colfer

When I saw that the mind behind the Artemis Fowl series had a new venture - I couldn't buy the book fast enough.  Of course, then I didn't read it right away and it has probably come on sale about 14 times since LOL. At least I eventually got to it, right?

So - the premise....

Chevie Savano is an incredibly young FBI agent - at sixteen years old, she was part of a pilot project with the Bureau to suss out potential terrorist cells in schools before they could take root.  When the task she is set to goes terribly wrong - Chevie must go into hiding until it blows over.  So the FBI sends her to London.
The thing about the London office, though, is that it is the site of an even touchier special project.  One where key witnesses are being protected by being send back in time.  The criminals or witnesses live safe in Victorian London with an agent nearby to protect them.   Until the day that murderer-for-hire, Albert Garrick, is tasked with killing an agent and it all goes haywire.  Suddenly, the agent is dead and Garrick's apprentice, Riley, have been sucked back to the present day.  When they send a team back to find out what happened, Garrick kills them all and hops a quick ride to present day as well - and happens to acquire all of the memories and knowledge possessed by the agent who travels through time with him.

Garrick wants to kill Riley for failing him and he now has not only his cunning Victorian murderer mind - he now has all of the information about technology and time to make him all that more dangerous.

This story is brilliant.  Part of me wants to re-read it just to actually have the flow of it go uninterrupted.  I very much enjoyed the adventure.  My spine tingled appropriately whenever Garrick opened his mouth and I loved how the two young  main characters become very good friends, bonded by their incredible adventure together.

This took me an impossibly long time to read.  But that wasn't the books fault.  Totally mine.  I would read it in bursts and then put it down for long periods of time.  then I'd pick it up and read a huge chunk...and then put it down again.   Life just got in the way.  I think if I'd had this on vacation - it woul dhave been read in a couple of days - it is truly that engaging.  I just couldn't be engaged.

I do recommend it.  It is a young adult book but I would say it is better suited to the 13-16 age set instead of a younger pre-teen audience.  There is a great deal of violence, but the fantasy that underpins the entire story is quite captivating.