Artemis Fowl

Artemis is in Ho Chi Minh City on a scorching hot day with his servant, Butler, who is a large man. Artemis doesn’t like the heat because he’s pale and spends a lot of time with computers. A waiter offers them tea, but Artemis quickly realizes that the refined waiter is actually Nguyen, the man they’re supposed to meet, in disguise. Nguyen wanted to check them for weapons first. After Nguyen admits his identity, he is frightened to learn that Butler is heavily armed, but Artemis promises Nguyen they won’t hurt him.

Nguyen has information about something Artemis wants. He shows Artemis a photo of a green hand that belongs to a local healer woman who drinks a lot of rice wine. Artemis convinces a reluctant Nguyen to take him and Butler directly to the healer. Nguyen leads them to a shadowy alley where the healer stays, but he goes no farther. Artemis puts on night-vision goggles, and then he approaches the healer.

The healer demands wine before talking to Artemis. Butler gives her some Irish whiskey. Artemis then tells the healer he knows she isn’t a woman but a fairy. He says he wants her “Book,” but she pretends not to understand. Artemis then reveals that the whiskey he gave the fairy contained holy water (which is deadly to fairies), and he will only give her the cure if he gets her Book for 30 minutes. (Every fairy has their own copy of a Book that contains the key to all fairies’ magic.) The fairy reluctantly agrees.

In 30 minutes, Artemis and Butler scan the whole book and e-mail it back to Fowl Manor in the outskirts of Dublin. When Artemis is done, he gives the healer a cure that will purge a whole century of alcohol from her body. Butler asks why Artemis bothered to cure the fairy rather than letting her die, but Artemis says that a corpse would be evidence, and plus he slipped an amnesiac into the fairy’s cure. The Butler family has been training as bodyguards for generations, and each generation of the Fowl line gets matched up with one from the Butler line.