The Recruit

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of child abuse and bullying.

“Some kids were happy to have one games console. James Choke had every console, game, and accessory going. He had a PC, an MP3 player, Nokia mobile, widescreen TV, and DVD recorder in his room. He never looked after any of it. If something broke he got another one. He had eight pairs of Nike trainers. A top-line skateboard. A £600 racing bike. When his bedroom was in a mess it looked like a bomb had gone off in Toys ‘R’ Us.”

This excerpt from the beginning of the book introduces James’s life before CHERUB and reveals that, despite being emotionally distanced from his mom, he is spoiled by the shoplifting ring she runs. The disposable view James has of his possessions translates into misbehavior, which both gets him in trouble and puts him on CHERUB’s radar. However, unlike with his possessions, James understands that people are worth more than being broken and replaced, and this is one of James’s most positive qualities. When he cares about someone or something (such as Lauren or his later missions with CHERUB), he puts in the effort to make things work. This section also dates The Recruit by mentioning popular technology from the time the book was published (such as a DVD recorder) and Toys ‘R’ Us, which is no longer in business.

“Ending up in this mess made James start asking questions about himself. He knew he wasn’t a very good person. He was always getting in fights. He was clever, but he never did any work so he got bad marks. James remembered all the times his teachers had told him he was wasting his potential and that he’d end up in a bad way. He’d sat through billions of lectures with his brain turned off. Now he was beginning to think they were mostly right and that made him hate them even more.”

Taken with the previous quotation, these lines show James realizing the problem with his lifestyle. After getting in trouble with large consequences, James feels bad about what he did, but since he’s at the beginning of his character arc, he struggles to take responsibility for his actions. Instead, he blames the adults who have told him he acts and performs poorly, wanting to believe their assessments are inaccurate—not that he is lazy and spoiled.