The Affair by Lee Child

December 12, 2011. Even when he delivers a lesser tale, it’s still good!

Lee Child goes back in time to when hot, hunky, tough Jack Reacher is still in the army. He’s sent to a small town which houses a military base that the Pentagon is keeping as quiet as possible. But a young woman has been murdered, and the fear is that one of the special forces soldiers based there is the killer.

Reacher heads off and is soon in touch with the gorgeous town sheriff who is a former Marine. She wants the killer to have come from the base, so it’s not one of her citizens. He, naturally, wants the truth, and won’t let red tape and rednecks get in his way. As he starts investigating, the leads seem to reach a long way to the top of the Pentagon.

One of the claims to fame of this book is that it narrowly avoided winning the Bad Sex in Fiction title recently. And, boy, is it bad! Normally Reacher is discreet in his bedroom antics, but here we have pages of – frankly silly – sex romps.

Skip these and there’s still enough cloak-and-dagger and clever sleuthing. It’s not Child’s best, but it is sure an easy way to while away a few hours. – The Affair is published by Bantam Press. Review by Lindsay Slogrove