After the death of his mother Gwen from an accidental overdose of alcohol and pain medication, intelligent but rebellious eleven-year-old James Choke is sent to a children's home called Nebraska House; to his dismay, his half-sister Lauren Onions is sent to live with her neglectful father Ron.

James is paired up with Kerry Chang, who was forced to quit her previous attempt at basic training due to a knee injury.

Despite prolonged torment at the hands of head training instructor Norman Large, including being forced to spend Christmas night outside in their underwear and a grueling 3-day solo hike through the Malaysian rainforest, they both pass.

James returns to campus to discover that Lauren has joined CHERUB as well after Ron was sentenced to prison for physically abusing her and selling contraband cigarettes.

Overseen by mission controller Ewart Asker, the two pose as the nephew and niece of a resident of Fort Harmony, a hippie commune in Wales.

James and Amy discover that Fort Harmony residents Fire and World Dunn and Brian "Bungle" Evans are Help Earth operatives, and are planning an anthrax attack on the conference.

Development for both The Recruit and the CHERUB series as a whole began in 1999 when Muchamore was visiting his sister in Australia and found his twelve-year-old nephew complaining about the lack of any good reading material.