I just finished Lee Child's latest, The Affair. Y'all know from my histrionic explosion over the choice of Tom Cruise to play Jack Reacher in "One Shot" that I am a huge Reacher fan. I consider that the most fucked up casting decision in movie history. That's like letting the late Anna Nicole Smith play Jackie Kennedy. But the word from the book tour from The Affair is that Child is telling people to piss off, that Cruise is a great choice, and that despite the fact that Reacher's enormous size and physique is almost a separate character in and of itself in terms of impact on the plot line of EVERY BOOK, it really doesn't matter that Jack Reacher's penis is bigger than Tom Cruise.
So add Child's position about the Jumping Couch Monkey to the plot of the latest book, and you have to come to the inevitable conclusion.
Child is officially a sell-out.
The Affair reads like a movie treatment than the creative Reacher novels I have come to know and love. You have the hot sheriff, the mysterious death in a tiny military town in Bumfuck, MS, racial tensions, and the perquisite stupid redneck scumbags that try to pick a fight with Reacher several times with predictable results. The plotlines are so obvious, even when Child thinks he is being clever - the red herrings are real... until they aren't, for the most implausible of reasons. For example, the Sheriff's official Marine Corps file is a top secret document incapable of being tampered with - until is isn't. It's like he wrote himself into a crack and then just knocked a hole in the wall to get out of it.
It also has the longest and most detailed love scenes of any of the previous Reacher books. That is not necessarily a bad thing for those of us who would leave our husbands for Jack Reacher, but this many books into the series, with the female Reacher fans being used to just fantasizing about those love scenes, a long, detailed description of Reacher having sex is almost TMI now. But... no action movie is complete without a love scene, so Child had to write one. Another plot device checked off the list!
I believe Child is winding down the series. We get explanations for everything from Reacher's D.C. bank account to the folding toothbrush to his thought process in deciding to hit the road and go off the grid. Then in the end, we discover what lead him to Margrave, Georgia, which, of course, is the setting for the very first Reacher novel (and the absolute best book of the bunch) Killing Floor.
Child started out in television production, and it has become obvious that he is coming full circle. He is beginning to focus more on "How can I write these books to be movies that will make me money?" rather than "How can I write the kick ass stories about an awesome character my fans have come to know and love?" James Patterson and others have followed this same path - create a unique character, write interesting books, then once you become a household name, start churning out the pabulum for the masses, while allowing everything that attracted the real readers to your stories to wither on the vine. To her credit, Charlaine Harris is quitting on Sookie Stackhouse before this happens. Child should do the same.
Bottom line, The Affair is a good book. It is not, however, a good Reacher book.
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