The Killing

The Killing is the fourth novel of the CHERUB series by Robert Muchamore. The book chronicles the adventures of the CHERUB agents investigating a small-time crook who suddenly makes it big. Muchamore named the book after the film The Killing. The novel was generally well received, but, unlike its predecessor, received no awards.

Plot
After coming back from a mission with Shakeel, James is dumped by his girlfriend, Kerry Chang. As he leaves Kerry's room, he sees a red-shirt CHERUB called Andy Lagan and takes his temper out on him, beating him up. For this, James finds his friends ignoring him, and is punished with no holiday, suspension from missions, cleaning the mission preparation rooms every night for three months, and having anger management sessions with a counselor.

Zara feels sorry for James, so she gets him a low-risk mission to get him out of the punishment and so he can spend some time away from his friends blanking him. For a second time, James is working with Dave, a 17-year-old black shirt. They are being sent to investigate Leon Tarasov who runs a garage. When they get to their flat in south London, Dave gets a job at the suspect's garage, and James gets a girlfriend called Hannah. During his first night in the area, James gets into an altercation with two goons and is arrested for it. As he is being placed in the police car, police officer Michael Patel assaults him. Hannah tells James how her cousin, Will, fell off the top of the building more than a year earlier. As James has no computer that she knows of, she gives him Will's old one.

Back home, James finds that Will had a CD with information about a robbery at a casino almost a year earlier. The theft totaled £90,000 but is too small for what they are looking for. Dave later realises that if the casino had an illegal floor with more gambling equipment that was also robbed, then there would be enough money to be what they are looking for. To help find more evidence to capture Michael Patel, Kerry and Lauren join the team. A few days later, Hannah reveals that after Will's death, Patel had deliberately run over to the body and touched it, supposedly to see if he was still alive. James and Dave figure out that that policeman had killed Will.

They tell their mission controller, John Jones, who gets a special section of the police to investigate. They do, and find out that Alan Falco, the retired evidence keeper, had destroyed the statements of the witnesses which contained evidence which could have Michael Patel arrested. In return for immunity from prosecution Falco returns the statements and Michael Patel and Leon Tarasov are arrested for murder of Will Clarke and for robbery of the Golden Sun Casino. Michael Patel was sentenced to life with possibility of parole, and Leon Tarasov received a five-year sentence. James and Dave return to campus and James reconciles himself to his friends, including Kerry.