Eoin Colfer's The Wish List is a bitter yet rip-roaringly funny tale of two wayward teenagers on the road to hell--literally. The story opens with Meg Finn and Belch Brennan, two bad kids on the block, breaking into a pensioner's flat. At the very last minute Meg reneges on the deal and tries to break for freedom, leaving the aged Lowrie McCall screaming with the pain inflicted by Belch's bloodthirsty hound. Backed into a corner by Belch and a shotgun, Meg pleads with Belch to call an ambulance and save the old man's life. Instead he pulls the trigger and in a split second of evil and madness the bullet hits a gas tank and knocks Meg's soul out of her skin, catapulting her spirit along a vast tunnel on the way to some particularly shiny, pearly gates.

Meanwhile, Beelzebub is fretting. His boss was expecting two souls, and although Belch (in his new incarnation as a dribbling, growling, red-eyed dog-boy) took the correct turn in the tunnel, he's rather miffed that Meg found her way to the beautifully buffed Pearlies and an interview with Saint Peter and his rather complicated points system. So, the archangel and the demon do a deal, and Meg is given a chance to redeem herself. If she fails on her mission to help Lowrie McCall work his way through his Wish List before he dies, then she too will be heading south to join the boy-band members, the mime artists, Belch and the world's computer boffins in fiery damnation...

The Wish List was first published in Ireland in 2000, bringing with it much critical acclaim. In 2002, following the enormous and well-deserved success of the Artemis Fowl books, Eoin Colfer's publishers decided to let the rest of the world sneak a peak. And about time too. Hopelessly hopeful, immorally moral, rattling with the pain of its anti-heroine as she faces her own demons, and rib-crackingly, laugh-out-loud funny, The Wish List strikes an almost perfect balance between good, old-fashioned scruples and thoroughly modern irreverence in what is ultimately, and most importantly, a darn good read. Not for the faint-hearted, and certainly not for those who can't take a border-line sick joke every now and then, The Wish List is a divinely devilish tale for anyone who enjoys a bucketful of grit and truck loads of wisecracks with their reading material. Ages 10 and over, recommended particularly for older readers. --Susan Harrison