The Sleepwalker
Ratings8
Average rating4
15
Ratings8
Average rating4
Teen special agents investigate a deadly plane crash in the ninth book of the CHERUB series, which Rick Riordan says has “plenty of action.” CHERUB agents are highly trained, extremely talented—and all under the age of seventeen. For official purposes, these agents do not exist. They are sent out on missions to spy on terrorists, hack into crucial documents, and gather intel on global threats—all without gadgets or weapons. It is an extremely dangerous job, but these agents have one crucial advantage: Adults never suspect that teens are spying on them. In The Sleepwalker, a commercial plane explodes over the Atlantic Ocean leaving 345 people dead. Crash investigators suspect terrorism, but they aren’t getting anywhere. But when a distressed twelve-year-old calls a police hotline and blames his father for the explosion, James Adams and his sister Lauren are assigned to befriend the boy to find out the shocking truth…
Reviews with the most likes.
The Sleepwalker continues the CHERUB tradition of an A and B-plot, but this time ties both together much better than previous entries with the throughline of family abuse. Opening with an exciting campus training exercise, Lauren is able to prove herself as an experienced agent which creates an entertaining dynamic with her mission partner, the young and over-eager Jake. I appreciate how this was differentiated with an ‘open-approach', and Muchamore explains how the agents' spying technology actually works. James finally gets a bit of poor luck, with even the characters acknowledging how ‘jammy' he is, which allows for refreshing character development with Kerry away from action (mostly). I also can't ignore the interweaved plane crash chapters at the beginning, which were truly heartbreaking. The unexpected conclusions involving Jake, the plane crash and the Fahim character all add to the increasingly grey morality in the CHERUB series, which I am appreciating as a reader.
