Having grown up in Southern Orange County, I have loved Drew’s ability to capture the setting so well: When detective Ben Wade responds to a call, he goes to “...a nice street…every house painted a shade of beige, little squares of mowed green grass, sprinklers draining the Colorado to keep that green.” a b Andreeva, Nellie (May 23, 2022). "Alexi Hawley Inks Big New TV & Film Deal with eOne". Deadline . Retrieved October 3, 2022.

a b c d Fleming, Mike Jr. (April 28, 2021). "Noah Centineo to Star in Netflix CIA Series from Alexi Hawley, Doug Liman & eOne". Deadline . Retrieved October 3, 2022. CHERUB agents are aged between 10 and 17. They live in the real world, slipping under adult radar and getting information that sends criminals and terrorists to jail.” Now this is quite a long quote but it's extremely true no one suspects children and teenagers as undercover agents, do they? This the campfire story of The Hook, but at the next campfire another horror story is being told, and so on. Until it becomes clear this is all one horror story. This is partially the story of how domestic terrorism groups such as Christian Identity, Posse Comitatus, Sovereign Citizens and many others started in the aftermath of the Vietnam war. Only the reader realizes those domestic terrorism groups became mainstream and supported by the President of the United States and most of his supporters by 2017. Albeit under other names, such as Proud Boys or Promise Keepers. Overall, this book was intriguing. It is a reminder of the oppression experienced by many legal immigrants to our country as well as the resistance of people who cannot accept change, diversity, acceptance, appreciation for fellow human beings because of preconceived notion or family bigotry. Breaking News - Netflix's "The Recruit" - Official First Look Debut | TheFutonCritic.com". The Futon Critic . Retrieved October 3, 2022.I didn’t think I could finish it, but this author knows how to tell a story and was able to hold my attention.

The Recruit is a disturbing novel that focuses on white supremacy during the years following the Vietnam conflict when certain people in California and throughout the US were wrongly concerned about being displaced in society by immigrants. While I know there are person with such offensive ideology in the USA, the degree of hate and vitriol was hard to realistically accept. DON'T BE THAT PARENT, DON'T BE NAIVE, THESE BOOKS WILL GET THEM READING EVEN IF THEY HAVE NEVER READ A WORD IN THEIR LIFE. The story involves bigots who hated the thought of Asian immigrants buying property, opening businesses, dating while people and integrating into society. At times I felt the author was preaching. At other times it felt like truth. Having been on planes that transported Vietnamese refugees to the US many years ago, I could visualize some of the experiences of the refugees. My parents volunteered as grandparents at school for a Vietnamese immigrant, who we today consider family. The Recruit is thoughtful, relevant, and brainy. Alan Drew paints such a vivid portrait of a seedy world, you’re convinced you’d never want to visit it. Yet as the story tightens its grip, you soon realize you can’t bear to leave.” —Graham Moore, author of The Holdout Extraordinary! The Recruit is as smart and stylish as it is compelling. The plot speeds like a race car on a breathtaking course filled with twists and turns, and the novel brims with rich psychological insights into the many fully drawn characters. I can think of no other thriller that portrays its vital themes—all relevant to our times—in such a riveting and up close and personal way. Bravo!” —Jeffery Deaver, author of The Bone Collector

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The basic plot is that an eleven year old boy lives with his younger sister and morbidly obese mother, who runs a shoplifting ring. When his mother dies unexpectedly, he ends up in the system while his sister is sent to live with her father. James gets into all kinds of trouble while in a group home, to the point where he ends up being recruited by CHERUB, a division of MI5 where all the agents are between the ages of 10 and 17. We follow him through basic training and his first mission. Overall though, i absolutely adored the book and remains to be one of the best i have ever read. :D Though the author doesn't state the specific time of the story, he offers ample clues that help us understand it takes place in 1987 (and it's mentioned in summary), about twelve years after the fall of Saigon and the formal end of the Vietnam War. It begins with Wade investigating a racial harassment crime where someone left a mutilated dog and printed racial slurs in an alley behind a store owned by a Vietnamese refugee, Bao Phan. As Drew develops that story line, he breaks into the B story of a murder investigation that eventually intersects with the main story. Something I learnt throughout the story was that being attentive could come in handy, this was because when James was in his Russian class, he had to pay attention because all that knowledge would come in handy for reading the instructions that were only in the language that they learnt. They would have to use their knowledge of the language they were learning or else if they didn't know then they wouldn't be able to pass basic training. The longshoreman-philosopher, Eric Hoffer, some years ago wrote a book called "The True Believer." In it he posits that fanatics are all alike; that the different flavors of fanaticism are almost chance. A true believer, a fanatic, for whatever personal inadequacies, needs something bigger than her/himself in which to believe, and belonging to this cause gives him/her a sense of purpose.