Robert Muchamore

Robert Muchamore
Robert at a CHERUB book signing in Lisbon (2011)
Born	Robert Kilgore Muchamore (1972-12-26) 26 December 1972 London, England
Occupation	Novelist
Genres	Spy Adventure Thriller
Notable work(s)	CHERUB Henderson's Boys Rock War
www.muchamore.com

Robert Muchamore (born 26 December 1972) is an English author, most notable for writing the CHERUB and Henderson's Boys novels.

Early life

Muchamore was born in London, and is the youngest of four children.^[1] Muchamore grew up in Tufnell Park and attended St. Johns Upper Holloway and Acland Burghley, leaving with a D in A Level economics and the hope of becoming an architect, photographer or writer.^[2][3] After realising training as an architect would require "too much work," and a Saturday job in a camera shop put him off being a photographer, he turned to writing. However, when he found his writing was not to a quality he would have liked, he gave up and secured a job as an office junior for a private investigation firm in 1991. He describes the 1990s for him as "pretty dull".^[3]

Career

CHERUB

Robert Muchamore started writing the CHERUB novels because his nephew in Australia could not find any novels that he liked reading.^[4] He tried to write novels that he would have enjoyed reading when he was an adolescent, a time when he remembers being too old for children's novels but not old enough to read adult novels.^[5]

The CHERUB series follows the life of a character named James Adams (formerly James Choke) and his younger half sister Lauren Adams (formerly Lauren Onions), a member of CHERUB (Charles Henderson's espionage research unit B), a top-secret branch of the British Secret Service. The organisation recruits orphan children and trains them as intelligence officers. Once qualified, they are used to investigate targets ranging from international terrorists to gang leaders. As children, they are considered innocent by their targets. CHERUB agents start basic training at aged 10. Basic training is a 100 day course that prepares CHERUBs for the dangers they may face during missions. CHERUB agents are then eligible for missions. Once passed basic training, agents take part in missions, before retiring at age 17.^[6]

Muchamore has written and published thirteen CHERUB novels, the last one being Shadow Wave - which was the last book in the series.^[7] In 2008 he also released Dark Sun as a World Book Day novella. This book is no longer available in print (due to be reprinted in November 2013^[8]) but can be bought off iTunes Bookstore iBooks for £1.99 or the website of the series for £4.99

The CHERUB series has been sold in more than 20 different countries^[9] and has won various awards. Most notably, The Recruit has won 8 literature awards.

Henderson's Boys

Muchamore has authored a second series of novels about the origins of CHERUB entitled Henderson's Boys. The first, The Escape, was released on 5 February 2009 in the UK.^[10] It was followed by Eagle Day and Secret Army, released in June 2009 and March 2010 respectively.^[11] The fourth, Grey Wolves was released in early 2011. The fifth book, The Prisoner, was released in February 2012 and a sixth book 'One Shot Kill' was released in November 2012

The Henderson's Boys novels are set during World War II and follow Charles Henderson, a British secret agent, as he creates the organisation later featured in the CHERUB series. The novels centre around four children: Marc Kilgour, Paul, Rosie Clarke, and PT Bivott.^[12]

CHERUB: Series 2 (Aramov)

The second series of CHERUB books, subtitled 'Aramov', is currently the main CHERUB series. The first novel, People's Republic,^[13] was released in August 2011. There will be 2 more books after People's Republic: Guardian Angel^[14] was released in September 2012 and Black Friday,^[15] was released September 2013. Lone Wolf is to be released in September 2014.

Rock War

In 2014 it was announced that he would be writing another novel, Rock War, which has no connection to CHERUB or Henderson Boys. It follows the story of Jay, Summer and Dylan entering a musical competition. A novella titled Rock War: The Audition will be available for World Book Day 2014.

Other novels

Home is another novel written by Robert Muchamore. It was deemed too violent to be published by a children's publisher and a publisher was never found. The story follows civil war in an unstated central African state, but most probably the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The full novel has been released by the author online.^[16]

In between writing The Recruit (in which the main character James learns of Cherub and becomes a recruit with his partner Kerry) and Class A, Muchamore wrote a novel called Little Criminals. He posted the first two chapters onto the CHERUB series official forum, to see what his fans thought. Unlike Home, Muchamore has not published the rest of the text on his fan forum because he still holds out some hope that it will be published.^{[citation needed]}

Bibliography

CHERUB

• CHERUB: The Recruit (April 2004)
• CHERUB: Class A (October 2004) (also known as The Dealer in the USA and The Mission in the UK bookclub edition)
• CHERUB: Maximum Security (April 2005)
• CHERUB: The Killing (October 2005)
• CHERUB: Divine Madness (April 2006)
• CHERUB: Man Vs. Beast (October 2006)
• CHERUB: The Fall (March 2007)
• CHERUB: Mad Dogs (October 2007)
• CHERUB: The Sleepwalker (February 2008)
  • CHERUB: Dark Sun (World Book Day novella) (March 2008)
• CHERUB: The General (September 2008)
• CHERUB: Brigands MC (September 2009)
• CHERUB: Shadow Wave (August 2010)

Henderson's Boys

• The Escape (February 2009)
• Eagle Day (June 2009)
• Secret Army (February 2010)
• Grey Wolves (February 2011)
• The Prisoner (February 2012)
• One Shot Kill (November 2012)
• Scorched Earth (2013)

CHERUB: Series 2 (Aramov)

• People's Republic (August 2011)
• Guardian Angel (August 2012)
• Black Friday (September 2013)
• Lone Wolf (September 2014)

Rock War

• Rock War (February 2014)
  • The Audition (World Book Day novella) (March 2014)

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Robert Muchamore.

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• Official website
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• Official CHERUB website
• Official Henderson's Boys website
• Official Rock War website