Highfire by Eoin Colfer

“True Detective meets Swamp Thing in the Artemis Fowl author’s neo-noirish thriller about a curmudgeonly dragon in Louisiana.” —Guardian

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Artemis Fowl series comes a hilarious and high-octane adult novel about a vodka-drinking, Flashdance-loving dragon who lives an isolated life in the bayous of Louisiana—and the raucous adventures that ensue when he crosses paths with a fifteen-year-old troublemaker on the run from a crooked sheriff.

In the days of yore, he flew the skies and scorched angry mobs—now he hides from swamp tour boats and rises only with the greatest reluctance from his Laz-Z-Boy recliner. Laying low in the bayou, this once-magnificent fire breather has been reduced to lighting Marlboros with nose sparks, swilling Absolut in a Flashdance T-shirt, and binging Netflix in a fishing shack. For centuries, he struck fear in hearts far and wide as Wyvern, Lord Highfire of the Highfire Eyrie—now he goes by Vern. However...he has survived, unlike the rest. He is the last of his kind, the last dragon. Still, no amount of vodka can drown the loneliness in his molten core. Vern’s glory days are long gone. Or are they?

A canny Cajun swamp rat, young Everett “Squib” Moreau does what he can to survive, trying not to break the heart of his saintly single mother. He’s finally decided to work for a shady smuggler—but on his first night, he witnesses his boss murdered by a crooked constable.

Regence Hooke is not just a dirty cop, he’s a despicable human being—who happens to want Squib’s momma in the worst way. When Hooke goes after his hidden witness with a grenade launcher, Squib finds himself airlifted from certain death by…a dragon?

The swamp can make strange bedfellows, and rather than be fried alive so the dragon can keep his secret, Squib strikes a deal with the scaly apex predator. He can act as his go-between (aka familiar)—fetch his vodka, keep him company, etc.—in exchange for protection from Hooke. Soon the three of them are careening headlong toward a combustible confrontation. There’s about to be a fiery reckoning, in which either dragons finally go extinct—or Vern’s glory days are back.

A triumphant return to the genre-bending fantasy that Eoin Colfer is so well known for, Highfire is an effortlessly clever and relentlessly funny tour-de-force of comedy and action.

I was a big fan of the Artemis Fowl series growing up and was interested to see how Eoin Colfer’s adult novels would fare in comparison. At a first glance Highfire reads unlike any of his childrens/YA novels with it’s namesake booze-drinking, adulterating dragon (with as the book would describe, very large balls which can be retracted… yes you read that right), Southern bayou slang, and a host of questionably gray characters. Not only that but the teenage human protag Everett “Squib” could be see as the polar opposite of Artemis Fowl being a school-averse, bayou exploring swamp kid with a history of getting into adolescent trouble. For anyone who has read Colfer’s other works, the colorful language and crude humor can be jarring (I personally found it highly entertaining, you can just imagine Colfer letting loose with giddy excitement with how much crass language and surpassingly violent descriptions are featured).

However once the characters are introduced, I could see some of Colfer’s signature strengths and expected elements coming through. While having completely different personalities, Artemis Fowl and Squib share the same element of growing up without a fatherly learning figure and finding it within a older sassy or prickly foe turned friend (Holly Short and Vern Highfire respectively). One my biggest pros to Colfer’s novels is also his strong character dynamics and banter which is also on full display between Squib and Vern (as well as Vern’s somewhat meme-d nickname for Bodie being “Green Day”). Speaking of which, this 2020 novel is chock full of pop references from Vern’s love of Flashdance, jabs at corny lines being compared to Coldplay’s frontman Chis Martin, a possible dragon being passed by as “fake news”; I really didn’t expect it considering Colfer’s past works were very light on pop culture.

While low-key funny throughout, I’m not sure if I would categorize this book as a comedy nor a fantasy genre as the fantasy elements are primarily contained to Vern’s existence and another particular character. The lore and mechanics of the fantasy elements are playing a supportive role to what otherwise feels like a character drama piece or even a coming of age story if you focus on Squib’s narrative. I felt like the pacing could’ve been adjusted as the introductory setup felt slow while the last confrontation arc between Hooke and Vern could’ve easily been twice as long as what was written. I also wished the middle of the story focusing on the growing relationships between Vern, Squib and Waxman was longer as it felt abruptly cut short just when the characters’ backstories were really being explored.

Overall though I like it and thought it was a light-hearted easy read and fit my expectation of Colfer writing an adult novel (I recently picked up Plugged as well, his other adult novel series). And I’d be lying if I said the final battle where all the good guys team up to fight the bad guys in Highfire didn’t take me down memory lane reading the similar setup with Artemis Fowl, Holly Short, Foaly, Butler and Mulch Diggums doing the same years ago.