Top Secret (novel cycle)

Top Secret (British title: CHERUB ) is the title of a German youth spy novel - cycle of Robert Muchamore , are formed in the young people in the CHERUB campus to agents and participating in missions. CHERUB is an organization under the British secret service MI5 . The basic idea behind the use of children as agents is that most criminals do not suspect that the son's new school friend is working for the secret service and bugging the entire house while doing homework together.

The German version was published by the Random House subsidiary cbt (C. Bertelsmann Taschenbuch). In March 2013, the first part of the sequel Top Secret - The New Generation - appeared with Agent Ryan as the main character.

The organization CHERUB in the novel cycle

history

During the Second World War, the British spy Charles Henderson worked for almost three years with French refugee children who, among other things, passed on messages inconspicuously or made friends with the soldiers in order to elicit information from them. This organization was called CHERUB. The use of children was so effective that Henderson continued it in peacetime. Over time, the number of children and young people has grown from 20 to almost 700.

The campus

The children and young people live on the CHERUB campus. Over the years it has been enlarged and expanded again and again. Agents who have completed the basic training live in the main building, until the completion of the mission preparation building the missions were also prepared here. There is also the junior block, in which the children who are not yet qualified for missions live, as well as a school, a dōjō , an infirmary, various training and sports fields, the training camp for basic education and other buildings. The campus is marked on maps as a military training area and is strictly secured.

recruitment

Only children who have no family ties at all are eligible for CHERUB, as relatives could notice their "disappearance". Furthermore, the children must be particularly intelligent and athletic as well as mentally resilient. Therefore it is difficult to find suitable candidates. Usually only children between the ages of six and twelve are recruited, sometimes younger, but never children older than twelve. Normally, the children from children's homes are recruited by an agent who first befriends the potential candidate and thus checks whether he is even a candidate. He is then taken to campus and examined medically and psychologically. Children older than ten also have to take an entrance test. If a child meets the requirements for admission, they can freely decide whether they want to become a member of CHERUB or not.

Training

As soon as they live on campus, the prospective agents are systematically prepared for their missions. In addition to normal school lessons, they receive training in various martial arts, for example . At the age of ten, the children take part in the 100-day basic training. The basic training brings the children to the limit of their physical and psychological resilience through constant physical and psychological stress. In addition, the basic training leader, Norman Large, uses every opportunity to harass the children until he is suspended. For the most part, the basic training takes place on a special site; leaving the site is considered to have broken off the basic training. Only the last few days take place outside the campus, for example in the Malaysian jungle or in the Arctic. Even after completing the basic training, the agents have to take part in courses on special topics and regularly have their fitness checked.

The missions

The aim of the missions is actually always to fight serious and organized crime. Each mission is led by an adult "head of operations". Before the actual mission begins, there is always extensive preparation in which the agents are informed, among other things, of the identity they are to assume. The agents usually take on the role of a family that has recently moved to the area, with the "operations manager" usually assuming the role of the single parent. Within the next few weeks, the agents are now trying to befriend the children of suspects and thus find any evidence. But there are also smaller missions in which the agents - disguised as young rioters, for example - break into buildings and look for information or check the security systems. In addition, there are the "recruiting missions", which are extremely unpopular with the agents, and the security tests, which are also unpopular (see above). All missions are classified according to danger.

The T-Shirts

At CHERUB, different t-shirt colors represent different status levels. The t-shirts may only be worn on campus. The colors mean:

orange

Guests on campus. The agents are only allowed to use the permission of the director Dr. Terence McAfferty abbreviated: "Mac" (later: Zara Asker) talking to guests.

red

CHERUBs who are not qualified to enter CHERUB basic training wear red t-shirts. People between the ages of six and ten are not qualified. But also not qualified is anyone who z. B. cannot swim or did not pass basic training the first time. Usually there are between two and three chances of passing the basic training.

Light Blue

Means that you are in the 100-day basic training.

Gray

Qualified agents receive this t-shirt after completing their basic training.

Dark blue

An agent receives dark blue after an extraordinary performance on one (or more) mission (s).

black

Awarded for excellence on multiple missions. Only the director of CHERUB has the privilege to award black. Approx. 50 percent of agents receive this t-shirt before leaving CHERUB.

White

Means that you are at least 17 years old and no longer active as an agent. The staff wears the white T-shirts.

Single volumes and plot

season 1

No.	Original title	First publication	German title	First publication (German)
1	The Recruit	April 15, 2004	The agent	July 25, 2005
2	Class A also: The Dealer or The Mission	October 14, 2004	Hot goods	August 7, 2006
3	Maximum security	April 14, 2005	The outbreak	July 2, 2007
4th	The killing	October 13, 2005	The order	August 4, 2008
5	Divine Madness	April 6, 2006	The sect	August 3, 2009
6th	Man Vs. Beast	October 19, 2006	The mission	June 8, 2010
7th	The Fall	March 15, 2007	The suspicion	November 9, 2010
8th	Mad Dogs	October 2007	The deal	June 21, 2011
9	The Sleepwalker	February 2008	The attack	November 9, 2011
10	The General	September 4, 2008	The maneuver	June 8, 2012
11	Brigands MC	September 3, 2009	The revenge	September 10, 2012
12	Shadow wave	May 5, 2011	The decision	October 8, 2012

The agent

When the mother of James Choke (Adams) dies, James has to go to a children's home, while his half-sister Lauren has to move in with her father. The children twelve-year-old James soon befriends turn out to be pretty bad friends. They first instigate James to demolish cars and steal alcohol, and then they see that James is arrested by the police.

The next morning after James was arrested by police, he woke up in a building on the CHERUB campus. He was drugged and taken there overnight. There Mac, the director, explains to him what CHERUB is all about. After James has passed the five entrance exams, Mac offers him a place at CHERUB, which James accepts after having had a day to think about it. Three weeks later, James completed the 100-day basic training. His training partner Kerry is of great help to him, as she is in basic training for the second time, even though she is younger than him.

When James has successfully completed his training, he learns that Lauren was also recruited by CHERUB after her father Ronald Onions beat her and spent nine years in prison for cigarette smuggling.

A few months later, James begins his first mission. She leads him to a Welsh hippie settlement called "Fort Harmony", as MI5 assumes that there are members of the militant environmental protection organization "Help Earth!" A meeting of the 200 most important oil managers is to take place in the immediate vicinity of “Fort Harmony” in a few weeks. Obviously, Help Earth! Is planning an attack on this meeting. In order not to arouse suspicion, James poses as the nephew of long-time resident Cathy Dunn, who has previously worked with the police. Together with the agent Amy, who plays James' big sister, James moves in with Cathy. In the course of the weeks, James made contact with many residents of Fort Harmony.

Finally, James discovers that the twins Fire and World are planning an attack on the convention center with the anthrax virus . In doing so, he infects himself with the pathogen. However, the infection later turns out to be less severe than initially assumed.

After James uncovered the planned attack, there is a raid and "Fort Harmony" is evacuated. When James comes back to campus, Mac gives him the dark blue t-shirt.

Hot goods

James is given a mission to spy on a drug dealer named Keith Moore. He carries out this job with his best friend Kyle Blueman, Nicole Eddison and his girlfriend Kerry under the supervision of the operations leaders Zara Asker and Eward Asker. To get to the dealer, he has to befriend his son Keith Moore Jr (Gennant Junior) and take over the drug delivery himself. While James' sister Lauren is visiting on her tenth birthday, Kerry, along with James and Lauren, discovers the factory floor where the drugs are processed. The surveillance of this hall eventually provides enough information to the police that they can arrest many of the drug dealers and backers, but Keith Moore remains at large. When Nicole is expelled from CHERUB after consuming drugs, the mission is about to end. But when Keith Moore offers James a vacation with him and Junior in Florida, the mission continues. James finds out that Keith Moore is trying to escape abroad and avoid prosecution, but before that happens, Moore is attacked by gunmen at his mansion. James kills one of them and escapes. Keith Moore is ready to cooperate with the police to get back to the UK and makes a confession.

The outbreak

Together with Dave Moss, James is smuggled as an inmate into a maximum security prison , the Arizona Max, in order to befriend the imprisoned son Curtis Oxford of the felon Jane Oxford. Dave is seriously injured in a brawl, but James is able to implement the original plan and, with the help of his sister Lauren, escape with Curtis in the hope that he will lead him to his mother. After a dangerous escape through the USA, Jane Oxford is actually found and arrested.

The order

The petty criminal Leon Tarasov suddenly has big money. MI5 wants to find out where its wealth comes from. James Adams and Dave Moss go on an undercover mission to London and quickly discover that it is not just a petty criminal and his machinations, but a much larger crime. Not only Leon, but also some corrupt police officers were involved in a robbery. To cover up the attack, the police officer Patel kills a boy who accidentally stumbles upon information about the robbery and corruption. In one of the most technically complex operations ever carried out by a CHERUB team, confessions are obtained from Leon and Patel. Some corrupt police officers are also later arrested.

The sect

CHERUB discovers a connection between the terrorist group "Help Earth" and a religious cult called "Survivors". James Adams as well as Lauren Adams and Dana Smith are smuggled undercover into the "cult" of the survivors. But here they have to take on not only the criminals, but also their own minds. The survivors' highly dangerous brainwashing tactics get them into trouble at one point or another. The big breakthrough comes when James and Lauren manage to get into the "Arche" (a sacred place of survivors in the outback of Australia). Meanwhile, Dana receives a mission from the ark in which she is supposed to carry out an attack on an unknown target. James and Lauren manage to gain valuable information about the ark, the cult and the terrorist organization Help Earth , also with the help of the son of the sect guru "Rathbone" . However, the two are in grave danger when the survivors cordon off the Ark in fear of an apocalypse. Meanwhile, Dana prevents Help Earth's planned attack on a tanker. Dana is awarded the blue t-shirt for her work. Lauren is rewarded with the black T-shirt for rescuing several children from the "Ark". She is the third youngest person who was ever allowed to wear the black T-shirt.

The mission

The book begins with an 11-year-old and a 14-year-old boy witnessing their mother being attacked by two masked men on behalf of the AFM (Animal Freedom Militia). She works for a company that conducts animal experiments.

On campus, Lauren asks her brother James if he is helping her and her friend Bethany sneak into basic training to bring food and clean clothes to Jake (Bethany's little brother) and Rat (Lauren's boyfriend). James refuses, but Lauren blackmailed him into telling his friend Kerry that he cheated on her on a mission a year earlier. So James is forced to take part, but they are caught by Mac. As a victim of extortion, James is not punished for this and then goes on a mission with Lauren and Kyle to break up the AFM.

During their mission, Kyle and James successfully infiltrate and destroy the AFA (Animal Freedom Army), a group that emerged from the AFM. During the mission, Lauren becomes a vegetarian because she is made aware of the living conditions of animals. You successfully return to campus and drive to the CHERUB summer camp.

The suspicion

When an MI5 operation goes wrong, James has to do everything to get out of Russia alive. Later, his sister Lauren is on her first solo mission trying to uncover a people smuggling gang. Back in England, James realizes that MI5 blames him for the failed mission and the associated murder of two MI5 agents. James has to go out of his way to prove that it was not his fault. CHERUB is even threatened with expulsion. With the help of Mr. Pike and Dana Smith (with whom he also falls in love) he manages to collect valuable information and ultimately Ewart Asker, who was long considered James 'and Danas' main suspect in the intrigue, the life and his CHERUB -Career to save. This earned him and Dana Smith the black t-shirt. As always, Lauren masters her mission with flying colors and manages to break the human smuggling ring. She almost became a victim of the smugglers herself.

The deal

After Gabrielle is critically injured on a mission with the drug gang "Slasher Boys" by an attack by the hostile "Runts", the entire mission is in danger. Only after a lengthy discussion do the Mission Controllers and the Ethics Committee decide to continue the mission by smuggling James and Bruce into the “Mad Dogs” who, together with the “Runts”, fight the “Slasher Boys”. James has worked with some members of the Mad Dogs on a previous mission. He takes on his former identity again and moves into the youth home "Zoo" (Halfway House). James and Bruce soon managed to rise in the reputation of Sasha, the leader of the "Mad Dogs", by successfully participating in robberies. Meanwhile, the gang war escalates, with murders, assaults and larger shootings. Mission Controllers plan to alert Sasha of a major Slasher Boys drug deal so that he can take the opportunity to rob the Slasher Boys and be arrested in the act. The plan goes wrong, however, because, contrary to what was expected, Sasha does not carry out the robbery himself, but instead instructs the "Runts" to do it. Due to the large robbery and the associated police operation , the "Mad Dogs" can rob an airport at the other end of the city relatively undisturbed. In the end, James and Bruce, who are both involved in the robbery at the airport, can still secure some evidence , but even they cannot prevent some criminals from escaping, so the mission is only halfway successful.

The attack

In a plane crash over the Atlantic, 345 passengers, including the family of the now retired head of CHERUB, Dr. McAfferty. The authorities are puzzling whether it is a terrorist attack or an accident. The 12-year-old Fahim bin Hassam calls a hotline of the secret service and connects his father Hassam bin Hassam with the crash. But the boy does not seem credible and the evidence speaks against him. For McAfferty, however, the only hope is to find out why his family died. So he works to get Lauren and Jake to deal with the case. Unlike in all other books, they use the "open investigation" method. That is, the two tell Fahim that they work for the British secret service. The two CHERUB agents try to find evidence against Fahim's father. Fahim doesn't know much about his father's activities either, but with his help it becomes possible to install eavesdropping devices in the apartment. At the end of the book, the CHERUB agents can find out that Fahim's father is really responsible for the crash - but not in the form of a terrorist attack, but because he declared discarded aircraft parts as new and sold them.

James has no mission in the book. He and Kerry do an internship at a fast food restaurant, where they make friends with Gemma, an employee of the restaurant. Later, James and Kerry get into trouble because they protect Gemma from their violent boyfriend and are arrested by the police in the process.

The maneuver

At the beginning of the story, James is on a mission with the militant anarchist group "Street Action Group". The leader, Chris Bradford, uses James as a bodyguard at a meeting with an arms dealer. There James succeeds in installing eavesdropping devices , but it turns out a little later that the mission was in vain, as another department of MI5, independently of CHERUB, has already planned and is carrying out the arrest of Bradford.

When James returns to campus, he finds that his girlfriend Dana has cheated on him. Then Dana and James split up.

A few weeks later, a delegation of CHERUB agents and some British soldiers led by Yosyp Kazakov set out for Fort Reagan, the world's largest training ground for house-to-house fighting . There they are supposed to "play" insurgents in a city controlled by a thousand American soldiers in a two-week exercise. Fort Reagan is a recreated city in the Nevada desert. Instead of live ammunition, colored projectiles and grenades are used here. Volunteers act as civilians and receive small financial compensation. Kazakov's tactics essentially consist of polluting the water supply of the American military base with a strong laxative , inciting the "civilians" against the soldiers and using CHERUB agents. He is very successful with it, after only two days he has won the exercise. Kazakov's tactic, while effective, is so unconventional that the exercise is repeated to the exclusion of James and Kazakov.

They then head to Las Vegas, where they try the game of blackjack and James counts the cards. This ends in a persecution by the guards.

The revenge

The revenge consists of two parts, separated by a time leap of four and a half years.

The first part takes place in 2003. It begins with the murder of Dante Scott's father, mother, brother and sister by the chairman of the Brigands MC motorcycle club because Dante's father - the vice chairman - refuses to agree to the sale of the clubhouse. The 9-year-old Dante manages to save his life and that of his one-and-a-half year old sister, whereupon the two are immediately accepted into a witness protection program. However, members of the Brigands track down MC Dante, the only witness to the murder, and carry out an attempted murder , which however fails. Since Dante made a false testimony to the police in one detail, the chairman's lawyers, known as the Commander, succeed in making him appear untrustworthy.

The second part takes place four and a half years later.

Lauren, Dante and James are given a mission in the area of ​​the Brigands MC, Dante and Lauren are to befriend the youngest son of the Commander, while James' task is to seek contact with the younger members of the Brigands MC and befriended motorcycle clubs. He learns about an arms trade in which his classmates Julian and Nigel are involved. Jake McEwen monitors the two of them to get to the backers, but the operation fails when the local police, who are not informed, intervene and arrest them.

Meanwhile, James is embroiled in a gang war between the Brigands MC and several other motorcycle clubs, but remains unharmed and earns the Commander's respect.

Dante is out for revenge against the commander during the entire mission, he breaks into his house and wants to kill him, but cannot overcome himself and instead scratches a threat into the desk with his knife. Without having found evidence against the Commander, the CHERUBS must return to campus.

The decision

In a follow-up mission, James is supposed to help arrest the commander. He succeeds in persuading the commander to go to an arms deal that the police have been informed about. Their access does not go as smoothly as planned, but eventually the commander can be arrested and charged with illegal arms trafficking.

On his final mission, James, along with Lauren and Kevin, is supposed to look after the children of the Malaysian Defense Minister Tan Abdullah, who is traveling to London for a arms deal with Great Britain. For Kyle, who is currently spending a few days on campus because of the wedding of two former cherubs, Abdullah is no stranger: During a basic training course in Langkawi , which he helped with, he had to see a village destroyed at the behest of Abdullah, then governor and the residents were relocated to make way for a hotel. Since then he has been in contact with one of the villagers and with aid organizations. Now he sees the opportunity with the help of the secret information from James' mission documents to put Abdullah down. He convinces James to refuse the mission and help him. Together with other supporters, they manage to record Abdullah in a bogus arms deal. When Abdullah realizes that he has been tricked and faces charges of corruption, he wants to flee to New York in his private jet . Ultimately, he committed suicide on his plane.

In the end, James goes to Stanford University , where he studies math and physics with Kerry Chang. Lauren's father Ronald Onions has been paroled from prison. He suffered from throat cancer and died just a few months later. James eventually finds his father, who is an author of math books.

season 2

The second season continues to appear in the English original under the title CHERUB , in the German translation as Top Secret (The New Generation) .

No.	Original title	First publication	German title	First publication (German)
1	People's Republic	4th August 2011	The clan	March 25.2013
2	Guardian Angel	August 2012	The intrigue	August 12, 2013
3	Black Friday	September 2013	The rivals	March 31, 2014
4th	Lone Wolf	August 1, 2014	The cartel	March 23, 2015
5	New Guard	June 2015	The abduction	March 28, 2016

The clan

Ryan Sharma joined CHERUB with his three brothers after their parents passed away. His first major mission is to California. There he should befriend Ethan Kitsell, who lives there with his mother Gillian Kitsell. This is actually called Galenka Aramov and belongs to the Aramov clan, a smuggling organization that operates from Kyrgyzstan and that wants to smash the TFU, a sub-organization of the American secret service. The TFU is headed by Dr. Denise Huggan, called Dr. D., Ted Brasker plays Ryan's father, Amy Collins, who now works for TFU, his half-sister. After initial difficulties, Ryan befriends Ethan after saving his life in a traffic accident. But before he can learn much from him, armed men break into the kitsells, kill Ethan's mother and best friend, and blow up the house. With Ryan's help, Ethan barely escapes. Ethan tells Ryan that he knows very well about his family and that he suspects his uncle Leonid to be behind the attack, which wants to take over power in the clan from his grandmother Irena. Irena has Ethan brought back to Kyrgyzstan, where she can better protect him.

Meanwhile, Fu Ning and her adoptive mother Ingrid are trying to flee China to Great Britain after their adoptive father was arrested for human trafficking. On the run, they also take on the services of the Aramov clan, but Leonid Aramov is after Ingrid's money and kills her. With the help of Dan, one of the clan's henchmen, Ning escapes and eventually reaches Great Britain. There she is first forced to work for a sandwich maker before she can escape and ultimately end up in a reception center for refugees. There Amy finds her, who sees in her on the one hand a source of information about the Aramov clan and on the other hand a new recruit for CHERUB. At the last minute she was able to prevent deportation to China, and Ning was accepted into CHERUB.

The intrigue

Ethan Aramov now lives in the "Kremlin", the headquarters of the Aramov clan. Ryan keeps in touch with him over the Internet and tries to get information about the clan. He can get Ethan to install spy software on Leonid Aramov's computer, but suddenly the contact breaks off. At CHERUB they find out that Ethan should go to a private school and send Ryan's friends Ning and Alfie there, but Ethan doesn't get there. While those involved in the mission are traveling to Kyrgyzstan to investigate the situation on the ground, Ethan was kidnapped on Leonid's instructions. However, he manages to escape and contact his grandmother Irena, who brings him back to Kyrgyzstan and banishes Leonid. The secret service managed to gain access to the clan's accounts via the spy software. When Irena realizes that the Aramov clan is facing financial failure, she enters into a deal. She allows the secret service to take over the clan in order to destroy it, but receives impunity and medical treatment for her cancer. Ethan is taken in by Ted Brasker.

The rivals

Ryan, Amy and Yosyp Kazakov now live in the Kremlin to dissolve the Aramov clan. They ensure that pilots can be arrested and aircraft confiscated again and again. In one of these actions, Ryan and Kazakov smuggled large quantities of explosives into the United States, where terrorists plan to carry out an attack on Black Friday . They were supposed to be arrested on landing, but the terrorists change their plan at the last moment. Ryan escapes, but Kazakov is shot. The politicians are now calling for a quick end to the Aramov clan. In the Kremlin, Tamara, Leonid's ex-wife, has seen through Amy and offers her a deal. She wants to lead the secret service to Leonid, if she and her son Andre can start a new life. Amy agrees, and Tamara and Andre come to the UK for a short training session. Andre is tutored by James Adams, who returned to CHERUB after completing his studies. Then they actually manage to find Leonid in Mexico and blow up the missile factory that he operates there. In Kyrgyzstan, too, the Aramov clan is destroyed and the main building blown up.

Web links

• German website at Random House
• Official site (English)
• Official Forum (English)
• French fans on site

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.randomhouse.de/webarticle/webarticle.jsp?aid=19316&mid=9092
2. ↑ http://www.randomhouse.de/Paperback/TOP-SECRET-Die-neue-Generation-Band-1-Der-Clan/Robert-Muchamore/e418104.rhd
3. ↑ http://www.randomhouse.de/Paperback/Top-Secret-Die-Intrige-Die-neue-Generation-Band-2/Robert-Muchamore/e420708.rhd
4. ↑ http://www.randomhouse.de/Paperback/Top-Secret-Die-Rivalen-Die-neue-Generation-3/Robert-Muchamore/e415534.rhd
5. ↑ http://www.randomhouse.de/Paperback/Top-Secret-Die-neue-Generation-Das-Kartell-Band-4/Robert-Muchamore/e459902.rhd
6. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from January 27, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
7. ↑ http://www.randomhouse.de/Paperback/Top-Secret-Die-Entfuehrung-Die-neue-Generation-5/Robert-Muchamore/e459905.rhd