Mark McVeigh

Mark McVeigh

The Dealer

Robert Muchamore

Action

Just Right

Just Finished 304

1. I have just finished The Dealer by Robert Muchamore. After many weeks of working on his mission, James finally gets close enough to Junior that he invites James down to Miami with him and his father. James is a secret undercover agent of CHERUB, a branch of MI5 in which kids go out to work undercover and help put criminals behind bars. James, only recently turning 13 and having completed his first mission a few months back, is now on another mission in which he has to befriend the son of Keith Moore, a major dealer of cocaine in England. He has success with this and many of the leaders of KMG, Keith Moore's Gang, have been arrested, but they do not have enough evidence to arrest Keith yet. During this process Junior decides to bring James on his and his father's annual trip to their beach house in Miami. While there, James is contacted by CHERUB and told to hack into Keith's computer and try to find evidence that Keith is buying cocaine while in Florida. James does as he is ordered and finds that not only is Keith not buying drugs but trying to get out of the business by settling all of his previous business debts. A few nights late, James and Junior decide it would be fun to go out and have a boxing match. After a couple of punches and jabs, they decide its not worth it and decide to go for a swim. But as soon as they end the match, James hears a bang coming from upstairs, but he just shrugs it off. Later when they go back up to the house they find George, Keith's assistant, dead on on the floor. While Junior ran outside and captured by one of the intruders that came in the room when they heard him scream, James ran into the next room, locks the door, and quickly makes a knife out of a CD near-by. The intruders break down the door, but with James CHERUB training he quickly jabs his knife into the gun wielding man's wrist and the gun drops to the floor. James quickly picks the gun up and holds the intruder at gun point, ordering him to put his hands up and surrender. While the intruder is ignoring orders from James, and inching towards him telling him there is now way hes going to shoot, James hears Keith Moore in the other room yell out in pain. James then pulls the trigger and shoots the man in the middle of the chest killing him instantly. He then escapes, deciding its more important to save himself then risk going back and help save the others. A few hours later, James finds out that it was the Lambayeke crew, a major cocaine supplier of KMG, looking for money. He also is informed that both Junior and Keith survived and are in good health. Eventually Keith agrees to a deal with the DEA to give them allot of information on the Lambayeke crew in exchange for a lighter prison sentence. James, due to strict CHERUB protocol, never saw Junior again and is sent back to campus immediately.
2. This is one of the best book I have ever read. In my opinion, Robert Muchamore is the best author ever. His first book, The Recruit, is my favorite book, but The Dealer is a very close second. Ever since I was little I have loved watching action movies. And with CHERUB, my love for action has carried over to reading. I really do not like reading, but I loved this book so much that I read it in 2 days! I have never read one of Muchamore's books before but after reading The Recruit, I don't thing I will ever stop reading them. I love that in the CHERUB series, there are kids my age going out on missions and taking down criminals that not even the highest paid agents in Britain could arrest. Also I like how not only are they trained assassins, they are normal kids going to school and doing homework and other things normal kids do, which makes this book very relatable.
3. I think the biggest theme in The Dealer would be judgement. As a CHERUB agent, you must be able to think fast in the harshest of situations. For example, when James was face to face with the intruder that had broken into Keith Moore's house, James had a major decision to make, shoot him or don't. Now this wasn't a game or anything, this was a 13 year old boy deciding whether or not to take a man's life. Personally, if I was put in that situation, I probably would have just froze there and not do anything. But James knew better and decided that one of them was going to die, and it wasn't going to be him. Also in the middle of the story Nicole, a girl that had been working with James on the mission, had made the judgement to sniff cocaine. This bad decision caused her to lose her position at CHERUB and was sent to a foster home to live the rest of her life. These kids are not only making little judgements about tests and quizzes, but making decisions that could possibly cost them their lives.
4. My favorite character is James. He is my favorite because he is not just your average kid, he is a math genius, has a black belt in karate, and is a secret agent for CHERUB. He is the kid every guy in the world wants to be. Also, he is a very clever person and not only gets out of bad situations, but in a very different way than most people would think to do. For example in the first book he finds himself in a situation in which he has to stay out all night in nothing but his underwear. He comes up with the idea of hiding under a bridge and starts a fire using a video camera. I would bet that if you put 100 grown men into the same position, maybe one or two would do something like James.
5. My least favorite character is Nicole. I don't like her because she is stuck up and doesn't appreciate what she has. One night while on the mission, Nicole is partying with her friends and decides to sniff cocaine. The usage of class A drugs in CHERUB is strictly prohibited and if anyone uses them they are kicked out of cherub immediately. Nicole is obviously kicked out of CHERUB and sent to a foster days to live out the rest of her life. But before she leaves she tries to convince James that CHERUB is a bad thing for them and he should quit and leave with her. Nicole doesn't realize that CHERUB is a place where a person is qualified for so many things, that they can do anything with there lives when they get out.
6. I thought the ending of this book was great. It was not what i had expected though. I had expected for Keith to be arrested while in Miami and sent to prison for many years. What actually happened was the Lambayeke crew went after Keith for money and he got off easy by ratting out the crew that had tried to take from him. Looking back now I knew he wouldn't have been arrested because James constantly said that Keith was innocent and wasn't buying drugs in Miami. But then again it was likely that his past would catch up to him after committing so many crimes while selling cocaine. As for the next books in the series I have no idea what will or could happen. The CHERUB series is a group of books with so many twists and turns you ll never know what coming next.