The Affair

Lee Child has taken a different approach to his series character, Jack Reacher, the former military cop who now wanders about the United States, earning enough money to get by and carrying no luggage except his portable toothbrush. In The Affair, Child tells us how Reacher got to be Reacher, going back in time to his last case while he was still an Army major.

It’s 1997, and the Army is in the midst of covert action in Kosovo, sending Rangers out of the Fort Kelham military base near Carter Crossing, Mississippi on a regular basis. The mission is secret, but the town knows something is going on, because Rangers are in and out of the local bars and stores – indeed, the small town depends on them to keep going. The problem is that show more there’s been a grotesque murder: a woman has had her throat slit, been drained of blood, and then posed in an alley as if she bled out there. Worse, and unknown to Reacher when he’s assigned to the case, she’s not the first.

The Army is concerned that someone on the base committed the murders. It sends an investigator directly to the base to conduct an investigation from the inside, but it also sends Reacher to Carter Crossing under cover, asking him to find out from that perspective just what’s going on. Reacher, who has spent his entire adult life in the Army, has no clothing suitable for an undercover mission. He purchases a shirt, a pair of pants, some underwear – and that famous portable toothbrush – and he’s set to go. Reacher doesn’t buy more than the clothes he wears, leading him to the pattern he observes in all the other books: when a shirt or a pair of pants gets dirty or torn, he simply chucks them and buys new. It’s a lot cheaper than having a wardrobe and a place to keep it, after all.

Once in Mississippi, though, the police chief – a stunningly gorgeous woman who used to be a Marine – makes Reacher for an undercover cop almost the second he sets foot on the streets of Carter Crossing. She all but orders him out of town until he comes up with some information she missed, at which point they become a team in most ways, even though they have opposite purposes: she wants the murderer to be on the Army base and not her problem, while Reacher wants to find that the murderer has no relationship to the Army whatsoever.

The investigation goes forward in the same, smart way most of Reacher’s cases progress, including the random violence that seems a part of his life. And the random violence is followed by some carefully planned violence in which Reacher’s lightning quick reactions save him from an ugly death, more than once. And Reacher has the romance – or, at least, the hot sex – that he seems to find waiting for him wherever he goes.

The origins of superheroes (and Reacher really is a superhero, even if he doesn’t wear tights and a cape) are not always the best tales, but Child has turned out a strong entry in the series with this novel. The reader familiar with Reacher gets the delight of recognition when Reacher does the sort of thing he always does, seeing how this or that habit of his started up. And readers who haven’t encountered Reacher before would find this novel a great place to start. It’s a good story, well told, precisely what a reader hopes to find in a thriller. show less

I think this is the worst Reacher novel. It is mean-sprited, overly complicated, and wordy. Where the series' strength is in the velicity and inevitability of Reacher triumphing over evil, using deadly force if required, here he becomes a sadistic cold-blooded murderer who is judge, jury, and executioner. By the end of the novel you are left with a bad taste in your mouth, both from the corruption the book decries and Reacher's sociopathic violence. Where in the series' other titles Reacher's violence is cathartic, here is is just revolting. The author deserves credit for witholding the plot denouement until the last pages, but even upon discovering the truth, it is a diluted experience because of overly complex plotting. Maybe Reacher show more and his creator get a pass since this is a prequel, but it doesn't make me look forward to the next iteration as I have done in the past. show less

Well, all of you Reacher Creatures* - do you have your copy of Lee Child's latest book - The Affair - yet? It releases today!

I don't bother reading the flyleaf or any pre-pub reviews - I just want to dive in and experience the latest Jack Reacher book (#16) without any inkling of what's going to happen. So....for those of you who feel the same, you may want to stop right here. But I'll tell you this before you leave - it's good, darn good, really darn good. You definitely won't be disappointed.

For those of you who can't resist a little peek... keep reading. Lee Child takes us back to the beginning of the end of Reacher's military career. Yes, we get to see into Reacher's past and have his back story filled in. How and why did he leave show more the army? Where and why did he start travelling so light?

"I remember the date, of course. It was Tuesday, the eleventh of March, 1997, and it was the last day I walked into that place as a legal employee of the people who built it."

"There was a lot more to leaving the service than getting a job. There were houses, and cars, and clothes. There were a hundred strange, unknown details, like the customs of a remote foreign tribe, glimpsed only in passing, and never fully understood."

Reacher is sent to Carter Crossing, Mississippi, to be a second pair of eyes for the Army when a local woman is found with her throat slit. Everything points to a Ranger on the elite training base just outside of town. But the deeper Reacher digs, the more dirt he turns up. There's been more than one death and everyone from the Pentagon to the Army and the local sheriff seem to have their own agenda and their own idea of who to blame....

Lee Child has created a character that appeals to all readers, men and women. He's the quintessential hard boiled hero. No backing down, his own set of morals and tough as nails. He has a firm moral compass, carefully delineated lines on what's right and wrong, but has no problem using questionable methods to get to the bottom of things. He's big, strong, smart and....well.... kinda sexy too. We get to see a much more personal side of Reacher in The Affair.

The plot is multi-layered and intricate, keeping me guessing until the end.The dialogue is short, sharp and witty. Really, all I can say is that I absolutely loved it. And, I'm a little in love with Reacher too.

"The sun was out, and the air was warm. There were miles behind me and miles ahead, and plenty of time on the clock. I had no ambitions and very few needs. I would be OK whatever came next." "I picked a road at random, and I put one foot on the curb and one in the trafic lane, and I stuck out my thumb."

And this reader cannot wait to see where Reacher lands next.

* I'm not sure where this phrase originated, but thanks to Jess for passing it on! show less

From Amazon:

Everything starts somewhere. For elite military cop Jack Reacher, that somewhere was Carter Crossing, Mississippi, way back in 1997.

A lonely railroad track. A crime scene. A cover-up. A young woman is dead, and solid evidence points to a soldier at a nearby military base. But that soldier has powerful friends in Washington. Reacher is ordered undercover to find out everything he can and then to vanish. But when he gets to Carter Crossing, Reacher meets local sheriff Elizabeth Deveraux, who has a thirst for justice and an appetite for secrets. Uncertain they can trust each other, they reluctantly join forces. Finding unexpected layers to the case, Reacher works to uncover the truth, while others try to bury it forever. The show more conspiracy threatens to shatter his faith in his mission—and turn him into a man to be feared.

My Thoughts:

I loved this book! As a rule, I will read anything that Lee Child writes, anything that Lee Child recommends, and anything that Lee Child might even use as a coaster- he's just that good. This book is probably my favorite of his (It's just SO hard to pick one). Lee introduces us to Jack Reacher when he was still an MP. Reacher is sent on a mission to help find a murderer in a small town, and potentially cover up any army scandal. Lee, as always fills the book with visually pleasing descriptions, strong character development, and helps us see into Reacher's oh so interesting past. Well done Lee...again. show less

OK, this isn't the best in Lee Child's Reacher series, but it's still a good read. The pace is fast, the writing is straightforward, and the story is fairly well-constructed. Since it covered the period when Reacher was still an MP, it was interesting to fill in the blanks on some of his earlier history.

I try not to play the spoiler in reviewing novels, but suffice to say that the ending was a bit unsatisfying. The loose ends of the story were tied up sufficiently well, but some of the details in how we reached that point were a little incredible. I liked most of the characters, particularly the sheriff and Munro, the other MP, but others (like the Army higher-ups) weren't developed very well. Some of Reacher's rare violent actions took show more place with zero blowback, which I found to be somewhat unbelievable.

If you're a fan of the Reacher series, you'll probably like this well enough. If you're new to Lee Child, I'd recommend starting elsewhere. This is a good book that unfortunately is judged against previous efforts that were considerably better. And I still can't believe Tom Cruise portrayed Reacher in a film..... show less

After a couple of books with what I thought had major problems, Lee Child is back in form for The Affair (signed copies available). Perhaps it is due to this being a prequel, that is, in a way, a smaller story, a narrower focus, more of a whodunnit. Hard to say.
But this story takes us back to Reacher’s final case as a military investigator, back in the Spring of ‘97. There’s been a murder outside a ‘secret’ military base and he’s sent to get into this small Mississippi town to look for information – a back-up investigator to the one sent into the base itself. From the start, things don’t add up and Reacher forms an alliance with the police chief, herself a former Marine, to search for answers.
As with the best of the show more Reacher books, about every other chapter there‘s a major plot twist. I would continually think I knew what was coming but I was invariably wrong. It was wonderful, the best kind of entertainment. Is the murder related to someone on the base or a local? Reacher is warned going in that there are heavy politics involved so he needs to tread lightly but get answers. Can’t really give you more – that’d ruin the chain of surprises.
Delightful too were the links he laid in that point to the actual first book in the series, Killing Floor to the small town in Georgia mentioned by his brother Joe in a postcard. Haven’t read that since it came out 14 years ago (actually, I probably read an advanced copy a few months before it was published, so it’s been more like 15 years!) and I should sit down and re-read it.
Anyway – Lee Child’s The Affair – read it, read it now. It’s alottafun! show less

This is the best of the Jack Reacher novels. The story takes place while Reacher is still in the military and assigned to investigate a murder in an Army post in the South. The only weak part of the story is his encounter with a self-important Colonel who is trying to derail Reacher's investigation. He tells the Colonel to stuff it and continues, bringing the culprits to Reacher's brand of justice. Child depicts this encounter as derailing Reacher's military career. This is a weak basis, completely lacking in verisimilitude, for the consequences Child depicts. With a little thought he could have invented a much more plausible for Reacher's decision to leave the Army.