When twelve-year-old evil genius Artemis Fowl tries to restore his family fortune by capturing a fairy and demanding a ransom in gold, the fairies fight back with magic, technology, and a particularly nasty troll.

Opal Koboi, power-crazed pixie, is plotting to exterminate mankind and become fairy queen. If she succeeds, the spirits of long-dead fairy warriors will rise from the earth, inhabit the nearest available bodies and wreak mass destruction. But what happens if those nearest bodies include crows, or deer, or badgers -- or two curious little boys by the names of Myles and Beckett Fowl? Yes, it's true. Criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl's four-year-old brothers...

In his second adventure, the youngest, brightest, and most dangerous criminal mastermind is at boarding school when he receives an urgent e-mail from Russia. It's from a man Artemis never thought he'd see again: his father, who has been kidnapped by the Russian mafia and pleads for Artemis's help.

After his last run-in with the fairies, Artemis Fowl's mind was wiped of memories of the world belowground and any goodness grudgingly learned is now gone, with the young genius reverting to his criminal lifestyle. Artemis has no memory of the fairy people and has returned to his unlawful ways. In Berlin, he is preparing to steal a famous Impressionist painting from a German bank. He doesn't know that his old rival, Opal, has escaped from prison...

Artemis has committed his entire fortune to a project he believes will save the planet and its inhabitants, both human and fairy. Can it be true? Has goodness taken hold of the world's greatest teenage criminal mastermind? Captain Holly Short is unconvinced, and discovers that Artemis is suffering from Atlantis Complex, a psychosis common among guilt-ridden fairies -- not humans -- and most likely triggered by Artemis's dabbling with fairy magic....