[4] The novel is set in France, from 5 to 15 June 1940,[5] at a time when Hitler's Nazi armies are invading and forcing civilians to flee.

Meanwhile, Paul and Rosie find a six-year-old called Hugo, who is later killed by Herr Potente, a German posing as Henderson.

[6] The Escape has received a positive reception from critics, with Toby Clements of The Daily Telegraph calling it "fresh and direct", but noting that the subject matter is "challenging".

With the help of PT Bivott, an American boy in trouble with the law, they help British bombers to target ports in France that will be used to invade Britain in Operation Sealion.

The British spy Charles Henderson has returned to Britain, having thwarted Nazi invasion plans, and wants to start an organisation training teenagers as secret agents.

Their training takes place in a requisitioned village, with parachute training in Scotland, followed by an exercise where the CHERUB team, and groups of Polish, Norwegian and French SOE agents, are parachuted over northern England and instructed to steal an anti-aircraft gun and deliver it to Kings Cross station in London within 48 hours.

Despite Air Vice Marshal Walker, the head of SOE, wanting the CHERUB agents to fail, they deliver two guns.

It begins with Marc Kilgour and Charles Henderson on a fact-gathering mission in the town of Lorient, on the Atlantic coast of France, in preparation for a possible future sabotage of the U-boat bases there.

They meet a local woman, Madame Mercier, who gets Marc into a part of the docks where he can take photos of the U-boat bunker.

After this, they sail back to a rendezvous with a boat from the UK, named Madeline, but two nights later, they are stopped by a German E-boat, but after a shootout, Troy LeConte reveals that Henderson's son has been born.

After a brief period of time in England, they go back into occupied France, where Joel and PT get jobs with the Organisation Todt, an organization which commandeered resources for German military usage, and Paul, Boo and Rosie work as a team to communicate with London, and Marc is a cigarette boy at a brothel-bar.

It expressly follows the escape of Marc Kilgour, a British spy working for the organisation CHERUB during the Second World War who was moved to a German labour team in Frankfurt in the previous book.

Fourteen-year-old Marc Kilgour is a Nazi prisoner of war, who is also a British spy working for the secret organisation CHERUB.

However, when he arrives back at his dormitory, a gang of bullies find that he is no longer protected by the three boys he was attempting to escape with, and they get into a fight where Marc is eventually knocked unconscious.

When he sees a chance to escape, Marc bolts but is forced to kill several German guards in the process and a search is put out for him.

[27] The novel is set from 16 May to 3 July 1943, when Hitler is developing a radical new weapon which he claims could turn the war back in his favor.

Henderson and his team embark on a mission to sabotage German supply lines but are soon redirected to stop the 108th Heavy Tank Battalion from reaching the D-Day landings.