As a keen teenage reader in the noughties, I was a devout fan of Anthony Horowitz’s spy series Alex Rider. “What if James Bond was a teenager?” proved a compelling premise and even the truly terrible film adaptation didn’t put me off. But on a visit to my local library, I discovered a series with a completely different angle on the life of an adolescent undercover agent. That series was called Cherub, and it was first published 20 years ago today.
The young intelligence operatives of Robert Muchamore’s books were recruited from children’s homes and troubled lives by a super-secret wing of British intelligence. Cherub agents could go where grown-ups couldn’t for the simple reason that adult crooks would never suspect children of spying.
