W.A.R.P.: THE RELUCTANT ASSASSIN by EOIN COLFER

thebbg
Jan 29, 2015
Branje traja 2 min

Summary:

Riley is Garrick’s apprentice. Of course, Albert Garrick is a murderer and an ex-magician who killed Riley’s family and decided to train him to be an assassin, too. Riley doesn’t like killing, in fact he has never killed anyone so everything goes wrong on his first task. Garrick pushes his hand so he stabs an old man who happens to be the founder of W.A.R.P. (Witness Anonymous Relocation Programme). Riley flies to the future through the wormhole that appears, followed by Garrick a short time later. In the future (nowadays) he meets special agent Chevie Savano from the FBI. They have to escape from Garrick who mutated into an improved and full of knowledge human being while in the wormhole. The only way away is to the past (19th century London, Riley’s own time) where they are kidnapped by the Battering Rams. The orders for the kidnapping were given by Charismo, a mysterious person who turns out to be from the 21st century and is responsible for the death of Riley’s family. He (Charismo) is later believed to be crazy and can’t kill anyone else. Riley and Chevie just have to defeat Garrick and they do that by using his own mirrors from the magic shows he used to have. They send him into the wormhole without the location for landing so he is to be lost there forever. In the end of the book Chevie has to get back to her own time and Riley decides to look for his step-brother in the 19th century. The ending was sad for me because they just go to where they belong no matter their friendship.

Characters:

Riley: he’s one of my favourite characters because he’s kind and can’t kill anyone. He talks a little funny, too.

Chevie: She’s one of my favourite characters, too. She is trained to fight for what’s right and she can beat a large man in a fight.

Albert Garrick: he’s quite scary but I think he is my favourite villain so far. He is very mean and evil, of course, but he can do tricks with mirrors on stage and he can stop a bullet with his teeth. He kills lots of people and that’s what I don’t like about him.

Otto Malarkey: he’s the leader of the Battering Rams and he’s not all that important but I wanted to mention him because he took place in another one of Eoin’s books, Airman. Both stories take place in the same time period, but unfortunately I didn’t notice Conor (from Airman) anywhere.

Opinion:

I really like this book. It’s interesting and scary from time to time and the descriptions of London in the past seem very accurate. This is the first book of the series and I can’t wait to read the next one. Of course lots of people are killed in this book so it probably isn’t that suitable for younger children even though I believe that anyone mature enough to read books this long shouldn’t have problems with the amount of violence in this book.