The Affair by Lee Child

It's 1997 and Major Jack Reacher is sent to Carter Crossing, Mississippi, which is located near the Fort Kelham army base. He is to go undercover and find out if a woman named Janice May Chapman was murdered by a local resident or someone from Kelham. Reacher's cover is blown almost immediately by the local sheriff Elizabeth Deveraux, who recognizes him as a military man (she was in the Marines herself). Things get more complicated when Reacher discovers that two more women were murdered in the same manner as Chapman and that he is attracted to Devereux. Reacher's mission is extremely sensitive because of military/local relations and orders from his superiors that aren't always honest or truthful. In The Affair, which is set before all the other books in the series, Child explores the reason Reacher left the army for the wandering life he leads now. It will be published next month.