Eoin Colfer attained international recognition with his splendid series of novels about a 12-year old genius thief named Artemis Fowl. The sixth book is coming out later this year. Those books are full of fun and fantasy, with laughs coming as quickly as danger.

However, Colfer has outdone himself with his latest novel. Just released, Airman soars the heights of grand adventure. Although the book is listed in the children’s section, adults will be able to curl up with this one and remember a childhood filled with wronged heroes who have to fight their ways back from incredible losses to battle the evil villains.

The pacing and characters in this book are different from those in the Fowl books and Colfer’s other novels. Conor Broekhart is the kid and the hero I wanted to be when I was just discovering adventurous fiction (and part of me would still like to be even now). He’s strong, courageous, intelligent, and a trained swordsman. Everything a dashing hero needs to be.

Usually novels like this end up with the hero saving the princess and earning her undying love. Colfer starts out with Conor doing that. That left me wondering what was next.

Well, what was next took a page from Alexander Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo and blended it into the fabric of Conor’s story in a way that kept me hurriedly turning pages. Raised in the Saltee Islands, Greater and Lesser, Conor was the son of King Nicholas’s most trusted captain, Declan Broekhart.

The islands are fictitious, but Colfer builds them with splendid fascination. Originally an insult, the islands were granted to the original king and granted their independence. One of the world’s largest diamond mines were discovered there. Overnight, the Saltee Islands became a world player.

The time is the late 19th century and airplanes haven’t been invented yet, though they’ve been dreamed about. Conor and his mentor, Victor, spend their days together designing airplanes, hoping to build the one that will actually fly.

I loved Conor’s relationship with his parents as well as his mentor. It made me remember so many other good books of derring-do I’d read as a kid. Victor trains Conor as a swordsman, martial artist, and scientist, and Conor naturally excels at all those things – exactly as a hero cut from this cloth is supposed to do.