Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception - Plot

Plot

The book begins with the pixie Opal Koboi faking a coma inside an asylum to avoid incarceration by the Lower Elements Police (LEP) after her failed rebellion and attempt at world domination (which took place in Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident).

Opal Koboi, who was under 24-hour surveillance and had DNA tests done every 4 hours by the LEP to ensure that Opal was actually in the asylum cell, with help from the Brill Brothers manages to replace herself with a clone, which is identical to herself (the only difference being that the clone is brain dead).

Opal lures Commander Julius Root and Captain Holly Short into a lava chute alone. Koboi then kills Commander Root of the LEP (framing Captain Holly Short as the murderer), and launches a bio-bomb at Artemis Fowl, which fails to kill him and his bodyguard Domovoi Butler.

Opal then proceeds with her plan to help Italian environmentalist Giovanni Zito send a probe downward, which, at least in Koboi's plan, will cause the humans to find the fairies and start an inter-species war, leading to fairy genocide.

Artemis Fowl was mindwiped in the third book of the series, Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code and has no memory of meeting the fairies. This has also caused him to revert back to his former self- the one cruel enough to kidnap a fairy. But he has a conscience, the difference is he chooses not to listen to it.

Artemis is rescued from the scene of the bio-bomb attack by Holly. She tells him who she is, in hopes to ignite his memory. He does not regain his memories of the past adventures, but agrees to help her for a fee. They are then recaptured by Koboi and thrown into a troll-infested abandoned fairy theme park known as the Eleven Wonders of the Human World (containing scale-models not only of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World but also the additions of Abu Simbel, Borobodur, Rapa Nui and the Throne Hall at Persepolis). After a desperate battle against the troll hordes on a model of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, they are rescued by former criminal Mulch Diggums and Butler. Holly and Artemis become friends "bonded by trauma" and Artemis says he feels that he doesn't need money to help a friend.

After being rescued, Mulch gives Artemis the disk that had been passed off as a gold medallion, which Butler was given earlier in the book. Artemis views the disk and regains his memories. He is overcome with guilt of what he had done to the fairies but to Holly the most and for the first time, he apologises for kidnapping her. He realises that Holly, Butler, and Mulch were the only friends he had. Together, the four friends take on Opal Koboi, knowing that they are the only ones that know she's escaped. It becomes a more difficult task with the LEP on their tail, who still thinks Holly is the one who killed the Commander. The new Commander refuses to believe anything, despite the fact that everyone knows Root was like a father to Holly.

Afterward, the story follows the struggle over the probe, which is closing in on the E7 chute. The probe eventually misses the chute, Koboi is detained by the LEP, and Holly is cleared of all charges over Commander Root's murder. However, she is frustrated by Commander Root's replacement, Ark Sool, so she resigns and starts a private investigation firm with Mulch Diggums.

It is also apparent that Artemis has had a change of heart, as he anonymously donates the famed painting The Fairy Thief, which he had stolen directly before Koboi's bio-bomb attack, to the Louvre museum.