The Supernaturalist

Cosmo Hill almost dies in his attempt to escape from the orphanage, the Clarissa Frayne Institute for Parentally Challenged Boys. But he sees something remarkable: blue spectral creatures feeding on his broken body. Rescued and healed by members of a small group who call themselves the Supernaturalists, he is drawn into a crusade against the parasitical spectres, which takes him from squalid streets dominated by adolescent street gangs to the plush offices of a great international corporation; and beyond, into space, to the orbiting computer that controls his world. There is plenty to enjoy in Colfer’s action thriller, which draws enthusiastically on recent cinematic visions of a future in which continuing scientific and technological progress is accompanied by social and environmental collapse. As might be expected, Colfer exploits the possibilities of future weaponry with inventive relish; and there are some exciting set pieces, particularly a street gang drag race which explodes into violent mayhem. Older readers will appreciate satirical touches like the ‘para-legals’, a crack troop of armed lawyers who aim to be first on the site of any accident. If anything, there’s perhaps too much going on. To my mind, constant combat and mind-boggling gadgetry don’t play as well on the page as they might on the screen and, although the central characters are interesting enough, they aren’t given enough space to develop convincingly. Colfer doesn’t seem to have decided exactly what he wants to do with the story. A rather distant, tongue in cheek narrative voice sometimes breaks out and it’s not clear whether Colfer is aiming mainly for thrills and laughs or has something more serious that he wants to say.