The Killing

The Killing felt like a story of three parts, which hurt the overall pacing for me. The first third of the book shows the reader what typical small missions and CHERUB training exercises are like. This was exciting, but largely inconsequential, which I had no problem with after the previous three books attached higher and higher stakes to them.

The thin middle section is what bogged down the book for me, as James actually undergoes some emotional character development. My issue was that when the final third of the book emerged, the mission grew into something bigger and somehow James's character development was lost in the exciting police plot. Whilst the story itself was engaging and different to the other CHERUB books so far, I never really felt like James solved his anger issues by the end of the book.

Past that criticism, the interesting character interactions and unfolding plot (individually in both the first and third parts) made this an enjoyable read.