02. The Affair (Jack Reacher Series #16)

As a fan of the Jack Reacher Series, THE AFFAIR was ok; not good, but not bad. Lee Child takes the reader back to 1997 when our intrepid loner was still an Army MP on an undercover assignment to Carter Crossing, Mississippi. His assignment is to make nice with local law enforcement and relay what they know to his superiors. A young beautiful woman has been murdered. Her throat slit. Her bloodless body left in an alley. Her suspected killer, a solder stationed at the nearby base. A soldier who has powerful friends in Washington, D.C. Reacher has no trouble making nice to Elizabeth Devereaux. She is the county Sheriff and a former Marine MP and has linked Janice Mae Chapman's killing to two other dead beauties that the soldier dated. Ever loyal to the Army, Jack Reacher knows that this case will be his last. He will not participate in a cover up to protect one soldier.

While the story is good, the telling gets tedious. Child repeats the 1997 references too often. Normally the reader gets up close to the serial killer and sees his or her psychology.
We don't get that here with the exception of the destroyed car. We do see, but not fully understand the puppet-master of the cover-up. The Washington ties to the soldier are strong, but would Pentagon Officers really go the extremes as Child wrote to protect one soldier? I think not. And some of Reacher's actions didn't ring true to his character, but the beginning and ending are very strong as well as the character development: finally a strong female that mirrors Jack. The midnight train and tracks become characters as well as strong suspense devices. But true Jack Reacher fans will ignore the flaws of the novel because of the good story THE AFFAIR is.

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