Plugged [Paperback]

Eoin Colfer, best known for his YA Artemis Fowl novels, has written an adult novel. An adult crime novel at that. Fresh from his extension of the Hitch Hikers Guide To the Galaxy series he's moved on again to another genre. He's certainly a man not afraid of tackling new challenges. The problem is that Plugged seems a bit like a pastiche as well, or at the least someone copying genre tropes and producing a novel by rote from them.

That's not to say this is not an enjoyable novel. I whipped through it in a day at a gallop. I wasn't bored at all. I laughed a bit. And was pretty well entertained. I just can't see this being a worldwide bestseller like Artemis Fowl. Or it may well be because of his name, but it shouldn't be on it's merits. Plugged is a crime novel in the mould of Colin Bateman or Charlie Higson. That is comic crime, with a wisecracking first person narrative. A whole host of coincidences, a couple of gruesome deaths, strip clubs and drug dealing lawyers. On face value it all sounds good fun, and it is.

Daniel McEvoy is an ex-soldier. Relocated to a small New Jersey town to escape the horrors of what he saw as a UN peacekeeper in the Lebanon, he now works on the door of the town's dodgy strip club. When his friend (who is also the man responsible for his newly installed hair plugs) Zeb vanishes, one of the strippers is murdered and he accidentally becomes an accomplice to the death of a police woman McEvoy finds himself drawn into a world that is just as dangerous as the Lebanon of his past.

All pretty standard stuff. And in many ways that's not an issue, the fact that it stays so true to the genre tropes means you always get what you expect and are satisfied, there's just a suspicion that Colfer isn't really being true to himself as a writer and that tainted the book for me

Plugged represents something of a departure for the acclaimed author of Artemis Fowl and other young adult novels, his latest novel heading for the more adult territory of crime fiction. But while the tone and content is definitely adult - it features a semi-delusional bouncer at a pretty sleazy "hostess" (ie. stripper) club who manages to get himself uncomfortably immersed in the crime and drug dealing world of suburban New Jersey - the reader will be happy to find out that there is still plenty of humour to be had with the subject along the way.

That's not to say that Colfer doesn't take Plugged seriously, or that he approaches the crime genre in any way half-hearted or tongue-in-cheek. Well, maybe just a little, since the hardboiled title could also refer to the hair-transplant treatment that Daniel McEvoy, the Irish-born bouncer at Slotz nightclub, and former soldier in the Peace Keeping forces in Lebanon, has been receiving from an old friend and doctor of dubious qualifications, Zeb. Zeb however has gone missing, seemingly mixed up with the worst of Cloisters' organised crime gangs, but before Dan can look for him, another incident at the nightclub involving one of the hostesses presents him with potentially a lot more trouble.

Colfer's venture into the crime genre doesn't sound like it offers anything new, not even the fact that Dan is a little bit deranged, suffering flashbacks to his time in Lebanon and hearing voices in his head - an imaginary Zeb constantly berating him for getting distracted from the case - but Colfer's angle is managing to make these problems witty and amusing. There is some amount of parody of the noir genre, but it's affectionate rather than poking fun at the genre, and not quite as broad in the humour as Bateman's Mystery Man novels, for example. When you're dealing with a crazy world however - and Dan comes across many entertainingly deranged characters - you have to laugh in order to survive.

You also have to laugh at yourself, particularly when you are Irish, are getting on in years and having something of a mid-life crisis, as Dan is here. That makes Dan an entertaining character to be with as he navigates the murky New Jersey underworld, and tries to keep on the right side of the not so perfect law enforcement services - to say nothing of the rather strange women who throw themselves at him. Nothing new then, but Plugged is a fast-paced and entertaining read that plays well within the crime genre while finding a new outlet for the author's trademark wit and humour.

Ever since Artemis Fowl, I have waited for Eoin Colfer to write an exclusively adult novel. It was worth the wait. The expected words are "unputdownable", "page turner" and "read in one sitting". Not one of them is wrong. This book is a joy. Elegantly written with a sense of humour that is missing in so much modern crime fiction. Don't make me wait another 10 years.