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[1] and was published on 27 September 2011 in the USA.[2] The Affair is a prequel set six months before Child's first novel, Killing Floor[3] and setting out the explosive circumstances under which Reacher's career in the United States Army was terminated.