The Affair

The Affair is the sixteenth book in the Jack Reacher series written by Lee Child but is a prequel set chronologically before most of them. It was published on 29 September 2011 in the United Kingdom and was published on 27 September 2011 in the USA. The Affair is a prequel set six months before Child's first novel, Killing Floor and setting out the explosive circumstances under which Reacher's career in the United States Army was terminated. This book is written in the first person. Plot In March 1997, Major Jack Reacher is briefed by his superior Colonel Leon Garber on a troubling development in Carter's Crossing, Mississippi: a woman has been found murdered, her throat slit, with signs of rape, and the military is concerned that one of the potential suspects seems to be Captain Reed Riley, a commander at Fort Kelham, a nearby Army Ranger base, with a reputation as a ladykiller. Garber informs Reacher that another MP, Major Duncan Munro, has been assigned to investigate the murder; his job is to go undercover and ensure that Munro's investigation doesn't damage the military's public image. He also puts Reacher in touch with Col. James John Frazer, a Senate liaison who warns Reacher that Reed's father, Senator Carlton Riley, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, will become hostile to the army if his son is targeted. Posing as a drifter, Reacher takes up residence in a local inn and goes for a meal, where he meets the local sheriff, Elizabeth Deveraux. A former Marine MP, she quickly deduces Reacher's true identity and purpose, but permits him to stay as long as he doesn't interfere with her investigation. Reacher does so anyway, and learns that the dead woman, Janice Chapman, was the third woman murdered in Carter's Crossing in just the last few months; the other two were young women from the poorer, largely African American section of town. Reacher's old friend Sergeant Frances Neagley arrives with a warning to stay away from Deveraux, who she claims was dishonorably discharged from the service following an incident with a fellow Marine, but Jack disregards her advice. As it becomes increasingly clear that Riley did in fact have something to do with Chapman's death and possibly the other two murders, Jack is ordered to cover up the evidence he's found this far, which he ignores.