The Affair: A Jack Reacher Novel

By Lee Child

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

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 conspiracy threatens to shatter his faith in his mission—and turn him into a man to be feared.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Sep 27, 2011
• ISBN: 9780440339359

Lee Child

Lee Child is one of the world’s leading thriller writers. He was born in Coventry, raised in Birmingham, and now lives in New York. It is said one of his novels featuring his hero Jack Reacher is sold somewhere in the world every nine seconds. His books consistently achieve the number-one slot on bestseller lists around the world, and have sold over one hundred million copies. Two blockbusting Jack Reacher movies have been made so far. www.LeeChild.com  

Reviews for The Affair

[quibee · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a fast moving investigation into what looks like an army cover up of the murder of a young woman. This is the prequel to the series.
Reacher is sent undercover, into a small Southern town, to investigate the murder and to keep the Pentagon officials informed of what's going on, so a lid can be kept on things. Even then, Reacher didn't like to toe the line.
The story has a few twists in its resolution.

[dham340 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Another jack reacher story. It's junk food but fun. What else can be said?

[gmmartz · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

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 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.....

[liz_57-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Finally, now we know why Jack Reacher left the army. Read an ARC copy this weekend. Still can not fathom Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher.

[labdaddy4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another great yarn with a solid main character. This is a kind of sequel to the prequel - set in 1997 & tells how Reacher left military service.I can't wait for the next one !

[erickibler · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This one was just okay.

It's the long ballyhooed story that explains why Reacher left the Army. Reacher is dispatched to Mississippi to investigate a murder, with the understanding that what he finds out may be so sensitive that the Army may want to keep a lid on it. What seems like a single murder becomes a case of serial killing. Adding to the confusion are cover-ups which lead to other killings.

Novels about serial killers often rely on salacious examinations of the abnormal psychology of the perpetrator. That's not a bad thing. In fact, it's probably the sine qua non of a good novel of that type. But here we get never get up close and personal with the killer. We see the end results of what the murderer has done, but unlike most Reacher novels, we never stand in the presence of the evil in such a way that when Reacher comes down on the perps in typical Biblical fashion, we feel that it's warranted. The killers and conspirators seem hapless rather than diabolical, so when Reacher finally murders them in cold blood (yes, not even in self-defense, in some cases), we end up directing our opprobrium toward Reacher himself, and not his victims. And that's not why you read a Reacher book. For Reacher's over-the-top brand of violence to work, you need to feel that the bad guy is a monster that needs killing.

[sunnysd_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

When an unshaven and civilian shod Reacher is sent south to investigate a politically sensitive murder at an army base with too many secrets, you know what's bound to happen. All hell's going to break loose, and of course it does. It's 1997 and Reacher's career is about to end. Don't miss it.

[joannemonck · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Love all the Jack Reacher books but this was on of the best. It takes place while he is still in the Army and gives you more of the background reasons he becomes a "civilian". Well done Lee Child. But as an aside how could you think Tom Cruise even remotely resembles Jack Reacher. Shame on you.

[zare_3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is the darkest Jack Reacher novel to date (IMHO).

Nevertheless if you like Reacher novels, you gonna enjoy this one - true prequel to the series.

[timjones_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The book group I'm in hops wildly from genre to genre - that's the second-best thing about it, the best being the people - and so we tackle books I would never normally read, like this one.I was expecting something in the Tom Clancy line, but this was quite a bit better than I expected - even though the solution to the murder mystery is telegraphed quite early in the novel, which makes the introduction of a lengthy read herring in its second half rather annoying. Jack Reacher is an engaging character, and the milieu of the novel is well-drawn - although I knocked off half a star for Reacher's readiness to act as executioner as well as judge and jury. He's the human equivalent of a drone strike.

[neddludd · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

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 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.

[seamystery · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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 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!

[reading_fox · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Better than the last few, but not yet back at the gripping page-turning heights of the first. Even though this is 16 books into the series, it is perfectly readable as a standalone. As it happens there are references to characters that have appeared in other books (almost for the first time in the series!) but there's no particular importance to them, they're just people Reacher knows.This is set back in '97 when Reacher is still in the Army - a Major in the Military Police. He instructed to go to a small country town near a local base. There have been some disturbing homicide reports and the Army wants to make sure no bad publicity gets out. If it was an Army person then it's to be handled descretely. Reacher's job is not on the base, other MPs are dealing with that, he is to liases with local law enforcement and ensure they're on the ball. The case is particularly delicate because a Senetor's son is one of the captains on the base, and being a bigshot ladies man is one of the prime suspects. Reacher quickly ascertains that the local sherif if a beautiful woman who was ex-marine MP - pretty much his equal. But every woman falls into his arms and within a day they're shagging like bunnies.All which was quite entertaining. After that it laspses back into the generic Reacher, with some of the faults from the later books. There's too much coincidence - Reacher happening to walk past the Sherif's former town house and discovering incriminating evidence. He was just cutting down a conveninent street, it asks too much of the reader to believ that 1 street in 1000 he picks would be the one with the details in it. Loose ends don't get tidyied up properly, there are no recriminations for shooting people etc etc. I think in the early stories it wasn't so obviously set in in an america where these things matter, more like Modern Wild West, but by now the whole basis of the novels is that they are contemporary. Hence it does matter. Also this is very much told retrospectively - how I got to be where I am today, which takes any of the mortal danger tension out of the equation. Whether it's six street punks coming for him or a bunch of annoyed Rangers (a unit that Reacher seems to have perenial problems with) we know he survives uninjured. One of Lee Child's tricks of the trade is a fairly meticulous detailed descriptions of a few items. When it works it's great this time the details again flow somewhere inbetween, they're slightly jarring whereas in the first books of the series they were seemless. But in the worst they were turgid lumps, and they aren't that bad either.Gripping aside it was fun, the plot twists were sufficiently devious. You could see how the evidence could be read weither way (is the perpetrator an army man or town one - and who?) but when one piece of evidence pointed one way, the next would lean the other. In the end I was disappointed with violence solves eveything approach - although that is classic Reacher - in that the consequences of violence weren't fully explored.

[auntmarge64 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Reacher, Reacher, Reacher! It's always a delicious treat to put down all other reading and stay glued to a new Reacher novel. Here he tells of the 1987 events which forced him from his work in the military police, and it's just as much fun as the "current" storyline.

[mswallack_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This on not one of my favorite Reacher books. I liked the fact that it was first person (I generally seem to prefer the first person Reacher books) and it gave Reacher plenty of opportunities to "be Reacher" (i.e., beat the living daylights out of one or more antagonists). And I liked seeing the evolution of Reacher's character into the wanderer that we've read about over the last fifteen books (well, fourteen if you exclude the one novel set back when he was still in the Army). I guess that the problem I had was that The Affair was, in many ways, more of a standard murder mystery. The "who" was essentially given away early in the story. There were also very few characters to inhabit the story around Reacher; most of his interactions were with characters who were never really fleshed out as people. And Reacher was never in any real danger in the story. He was just trying to investigate and clean up a mess, but he wasn't fighting for his own life. Oh, well. I'm still a Lee Child and Reacher fan.

[romonko · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Now, after reading this prequel book, I know how the Jack Reacher story began. The book is set in 1997 and most of the action takes place in a small town in Mississippi. Reacher (an Army Major who is an MP) is sent on an army secret mission to determine whether or not the killing of a local woman in the small town of Carter Crossing was done by a local or by someone from the nearby base. And Reacher finds himself in a real hornet's nest with more than just this one young woman dead. He knows that secrets are being kept and it takes all his skill and training to get to the bottom of it all. And on the way he meets the local Sheriff. With her help and with the help of another Army MP Major, they manage to take care of business in the typical Jack Reacher way. I love Child's laconic and laid back style of writing. He gets a lot said in an economical use of words, and the technique is very effective. No one can build suspense like he can. His Jack Reacher creation is iconic and unforgettable.

[twink_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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 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!

[readafew · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Affair is the 16th Jack Reacher book, but the first one I've ever read. I enjoyed listening to it. I don't think they are so great I need to read them all but I will be willing to listen or read them if one crosses my path. Reacher almost seemed to be close to Mary Sue levels of invincibility.A woman is found dead with her throat cut in an ally in a little town outside an army base in the late 90's. Jack Reacher is sent in undercover to make sure the local law enforcement isn't going to just blame a soldier and make a stink for the Army. Surprisingly he finds his match in the local Sheriff. She's an ex-marine and is pretty sharp. The more Reacher learns about the case, the more he thinks something stinks, apparently this is the 3rd victim, only the other 2 were from the wrong side of the tracks so didn't cause a stir. It doesn't help that one of the Officers in charge of the company suspected of the crimes happens to be the son of an important US Senator.There are quite a few twists and turns though none of them caught me completely off guard. As I said it was an enjoyable read and I'm sure I'll read more at some time in the future.