Half Moon Investigations

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Half Moon Investigations

Author	Eoin Colfer
Cover artist	art-Mark Riedy, design-Ellice M. Lee
Country	U.S., UK, Ireland
Genre(s)	mystery
Publisher	U.S.-Miramax Books, Europe-Puffin Books
Publication date	U.S. hardcover- March 2006, UK hardcover-June 1,2006 UK paperback-July 5th ,2007
Media type	Print(hardcover & paperback)
Pages	U.S. hardcover-290pgs., UK hardcover-320pgs.
ISBN	U.S. hardcover-0786849576, UK hardcover-0141382708

Half Moon Investigations is a novel by the celebrated Irish author Eoin Colfer. It was released in United States in March 2006 and was released in the U.K and Ireland on 1 June 2006, and the paperback edition was released in the UK July 5, 2007.

1 Plot Summary
2 Trivia
3 Covers
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Plot Summary

Fletcher Moon, or Half-Moon, as named by his peers, is a twelve year old boy attending Saint Jerome's Highschool. Fletcher has a bond with Seargent Murt Hourihaun by helping him solve cases and finding suspects. He had begun solving mysteries ever since he was three. A classmate from school, named April, asks for his help to find a lock of hair that she believe someone has stolen. She leads the Les Jeunes Etudiantes, a group of girls that everyone at the school believes are girly-girls. Fletcher, who was willing to take on any case, agrees to help her and starts off by investigating all suspects. This eventually gets him threatened by a thirteen year old named Red Sharkey, who didn't like what he was doing. Fletcher knows that Red is a prime suspect because of the crimes that the Sharkey family has committed.

Fletcher manages to hack into Murt's account on the police website to find past crimes the Sharkey family have committed. This leads him to a series of unsolved crimes that had occurred in his county. A sound outside his bedroom caused him to go out of his house and get assaulted by a hurley stick. Waking up in a hospital with a cast on his arm, he realizes that his arm bears Red's name on it, which came from the engraved band on the hurley stick. Fletcher goes on to April's cousin, May to tell her and photograph the evidence of his assault. After realizing he had gone to the wrong house, he finds out that May's lucky tap-dancing costume was being burned. The anesthetics causes Fletcher to pass out in the backyard and eventually wakes up with a torch in his hand. Getting blamed for the arson, he gets interrogated in Murt's truck. Red arrives and bails him out, telling him he was framed for the hurley stick assault.

Waking up in the Sharkey household, he finds out that Red's sister had disguised him to look like a Sharkey. Fletcher finds out that being a Sharkey isn't fun, because he was told not to commit a crime the first time they met a police officer. Red and Fletcher were given 24 hours to solve the chain of mysteries in their county. They first arrived to April's house because of a suspicion to see what they were doing. It turns out that the Les Jeunes Etudiantes are actually a group of girls that wants to rule the world. They had caused three boys from Saint Jerome's to be expelled because they were hindering their education with their behaviors. Red and Fletcher get caught by the girls and imprisoned in a cellar. The pair attempt to escape from the cellar by magnetizing a metal horn they had taken and drawing the bolt off the door. It turns out May had helped them escape. Red and Fletcher gets to Principal Quinn's house, where the Les Jeunes Etudiantes were trying to tell her Herod Sharkey had bruised Mercedes. This was a set-up staged by the groups, complete with pre-rehearsed lines. Red texts the lines that were rehearsed in April's house and sends to Murt, who was present at the time. He realizes it was all staged and the Les Jeunes Etudiantes were exposed, saving Herod from being expelled.

Fletcher knows that this still does not solve the mysteries that included his assault. He goes to a secret informant, and in exchange for Murt's account password, receives the information that he needed. He finds that the link between the crimes was Saint Jeromes. The pair break into the school and find out that the affected victims were directly and indirectly linked to the talent show. Fletcher tries to protect May from the criminal, but realizes that it was a mime. He blames May as the criminal, saying she had committed the crimes against the people who had a higher position than her in the last talent show. May's father exposes himself to try and save May from the humiliation, and is knocked out by Fletcher's mother when he was threatening him. Murt realizes that the mysteries were solved.

Two months after the incident, Fletcher is grounded from doing detective work. But Red goes up to him and tells him that they were going to make a detective agency together. The book ends with the words, "You're half right," which is an allusion to Fletcher's nickname.

[edit] Trivia

As Red and Half-Moon listened and exposed the set-up by the Les Jeunes Etudiantes, Murt mentions he has a client named "Art Fowler", which is a reference to Artemis Fowl, a character from another other series that he wrote fo the same name.