Saturday, 6 April 2013

The Affair. By Lee Child.

The Affair

Lee Child

Bantam Books. First published 2011.

For a long time I had wanted to read a Jack Reacher book, having been attracted by the covers and the blurbs. So finally I got this one. It is an 'airplane' book, best read on a journey. But it costs twice as much at the airport bookshop as at one outside.

Reacher is a military policeman investigating, in this book, murders which may have been committed by the military. The writing is too involved, falsely ironic and often a bit too overbearing. Neither the plot, nor the writing impressed me particularly. Reacher sort of collaborates with a lady sheriff, also ex-army, of the small town adjoining a military base where the murders takes place. This character is initially sympathetically etched, before degenerating into a boring 'tough-guy' type. 

Nowhere near the best (or even the medium best) American detective fiction. 

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