Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Return Man
    Unavailable
    The Return Man
    Unavailable
    The Return Man
    Audiobook14 hours

    The Return Man

    Written by V. M. Zito

    Narrated by Bernard Clark

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    The outbreak tore the U.S. in two. The east remains a safe haven. The west has become a ravaged wilderness. They call it the Evacuated States. It is here that Henry Marco makes his living. Hired by grieving relatives, he tracks down the dead and delivers peace.

    Now Homeland Security wants Marco for a mission unlike any other. He must return to California, where the apocalypse began. Where a secret is hidden. And where his own tragic past waits to punish him again.

    But in the wastelands of America, you never know who - or what - is watching you.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateApr 1, 2012
    ISBN9781619690172
    Unavailable
    The Return Man

    Related to The Return Man

    Related audiobooks

    Science Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      What To Read?

      May 26, 2023

      BY ELEANOR CATTON GRANTA Described by one critic as “a Kiwi Jonathan Franzen”, this fantastic novel explores what happens when a hippie collective clashes with a ruthless billionaire. Mira and Shelley run Birnam Wood, a guerrilla gardening group tha

      3 min read

    • Article

      Book Reviews

      May 31, 2021

      Adam Cruise | Tafelberg | 9780624091578 | R295 It’s not about the bats, it’s about you and me – and our governments. The Covid-19 pandemic put the spotlight on how human expansion has led to an increase in zoonotic viruses jumping species, and calls

      5 min read

    • Article

      Book Club

      May 25, 2022

      Book Club
      5 min read

    • Article

      From Wild Mustangs To Reimagined Housing, Check Out These Can't-miss Podcasts

      Nov 17, 2023

      Looking for dinner conversation starters this Thanksgiving? The NPR One team is here to help with podcast recommendations from across public media.

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Lives Of War Prisoners And An Ex-spy

      Apr 19, 2024

      Don’t allow yourself to be put off by the cumbersome title because this is a good book. South Africa’s contribution to the Allied cause in the north African deserts and Abyssinia is well known – less so that it resulted in upwards of 100 000 Italian

      2 min read

    • Article

      Great Stories

      Jun 1, 2019

      Great Stories
      1 min read

    • Article

      Politics, Princesses, And High-flying Drama

      Jul 21, 2023

      It can be difficult to classify a book which has a cow's rear end on the back cover and, on the front cover, a ruminating cow's front end with a road sign pointing to the mustlive-in towns of Darling and Shaka's Rock. Is the book speculation, literat

      2 min read

    • Article

      3 To Read Now

      Mar 28, 2022

      (CaribbeanReads) by Danielle Y. C. McClean Book 2 in the Secrets of Oscuros series – the sequel to the award-winning The Protectors’ Pledge – follows JV on his quest to uncover the mysteries of the natural and unnatural realms that occupy the Oscuros

      1 min read

    • Article

      Gripping Break From Apartheid Jail

      Apr 11, 2021

      AT EACH end of Tim Jenkin’s political life stood a huge bout of dejection. He was unhappy at the level of apathy among his fellow whites who insisted on leading their ordinary everyday lives under apartheid – and therefore threw in his lot with foot

      2 min read

    • Article

      Ghost Writing

      May 27, 2023

      By Siobhan Adcock (siobhanadcock.com). Plume, 2015. Bridget has given up her career to raise her daughter, but now a terrifying presence has entered their Texas home — and only Bridget can feel it. In 1902, motherhood spurs Rebecca to turn her back o

      2 min read

    • Article

      'Say Nothing' Is A Timely Warning That Ireland's Old Wounds Are Easily Opened

      Feb 25, 2019

      New Yorker writer Patrick Radden Keefe excels at exposing the past as he tells the story of Jean McConville, a mother of 10 who disappeared after masked men abducted her during Ireland's Troubles.

      3 min read

    • Article

      How UIC's Luis Alberto Urrea Became The Literary Conscience Of The Border

      Mar 21, 2018

      Luis Alberto Urrea, whose name has the lofty ring of an artist you think you know but you can't place, and who has quietly built the kind of reputation that validates such feelings, is about to become, finally, arguably, after decades of books and tr

      9 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Apr 19, 2024

      Books
      4 min read

    • Article

      Intense Suspense

      Apr 14, 2023

      By GEORGINA MOORE HQ Margo was 16 when she married Richard, an alcoholic poet, who regarded her as his muse. They loved each other deeply and so she was completely devastated when he abruptly abandoned her and their three daughters. Growing up in Sa

      3 min read

    • Article

      It’s All So Much: On Lauren Groff’s ‘Florida’

      Jun 5, 2018

      When I was growing up in Florida, we called it God’s Waiting Room, but not because we thought it was heavenly. The elderly retired in Florida, “waiting” for death, and we kids who joked about it were waiting, too. Not for death, but to leave for olde

      7 min read

    • Article

      Butchering the Mythic West

      Jan 5, 2021

      Butchering the Mythic West
      14 min read

    • Article

      Before the Shaking Starts

      Jul 10, 2019

      Before the Shaking Starts
      25 min read

    • Article

      INTERNATIONAL BOOKS / The Best Of The Month

      May 12, 2019

      “Comfort women” was a euphemism for sex slaves during World War II. In more than a dozen occupied countries, Japanese soldiers visited “homes” where women and teenage girls abducted from their families were raped and half-starved. This novel is about

      5 min read

    Reviews for The Return Man

    4.5/5

    5 ratings2 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      The Return Man V. M. Zito Mass Market Paperback Publisher: Orbit Publication Date: April 1, 2012 ISBN-13: 978-0316218283 448 pages More zombie goodness… The Return Man by Z. M. Vito introduces two very unique and different premises to the “Zombie Problem.” As the name implies, not only does Henry Marcos, “The Return Man” return to zombie infected/infested areas to finish what the virus started but V. M. Zito gives a logical explanation why zombies seem to congregate in certain places. For my part, both of these ideas are unique additions to the genre and is, in part, the reason for my four star rating. Another reason is that it’s a damn fine story! For a fee The Return Man will trek deep into an affected, off-limits zone and put an end to your zombified relative. For some family members this mercy killing is a final step in their healing process. For others, the “final ending” of their loved one might just allow them the closure they’ve needed to form a new beginning. Henry Marcos understands that the slow, meandering walk of the zombies has purpose and that a deep engrained memory, a spark of thought, compels them to seek out specific and meaningful places. Learn those important, sentimental places, The Return Man posits, and you can find almost anyone. So, why can’t Henry find his estranged wife? She’s out there somewhere and that’s what keeps Henry Marcos motivated and living at the edge of the zombie zone. I like that V. M. Zito introduces not one, but two, very different and creative notions concerning zombies into his debut novel and, in the process, side-stepped a number of redundant, overused tropes. (It bodes well for his survival in the industry.) In a day when most zombie, werewolf, and vampire stories follow long-used memes Zito worked outside the normal story lines to create a new sub-genre; that of Zombie Hunter. The Return Man held my interest throughout, and more importantly, kept me entertained from cover to cover. I love post-apocalyptic fiction and zombies. It’s even better when a new author adds unique ideas to a favorite mix and brings them successfully together. That’s usually when we find something special. The Return Man “is” that something special! File with: Post apocalyptic literature, zombies, survival, adventure, and zombies. I know I said zombies twice. I like zombies.4 out of 5 starsThe Alternative Southeast Wisconsin
    • 4/5
      There are some books I read that strike me so strongly as a story that would translate well into a movie. The Return Man is one of those movies. I read a lot in this genre. I love survivalist, end of society and end of world books. When I saw this title I grabbed it because it fits everything I love about an action novel. And it did not disappoint. The Return Man had me not wanting to put it down and had me thinking about the world created between its pages long after I finished. The Return Man begins several years after the western part of the United States has fallen and succumbed to a zombie plague. The government and society has retreated to east of the Mississippi; everything west of the Mississippi has been evacuated and abandoned. The zombie plague is focused only in the USA, other countries have not (yet) experienced it. (I wasn’t clear if Mexico or Canada had been effected and if not ….. why or what they were doing.) The main character of the story lives in Arizona in the house he lived in with his wife before the fall. He has fortified it and is able to jump off satellite connections and communicate with a relative living in the “safe states”. The Return Man is an interesting and different take on the zombie plague compared to what I have read before. Zombies are referred to as “corpses” and they are not completely mindless. The corpses are like most zombies -- not complex and not thinking roving beings but they retain some reflexive memory of places and actions. This is explained in the book in a scientific way - - the stronger the emotional connection to a place or action, the more embedded it is in the brain and only that is retained. So a corpse will return to locations that it had a strong emotional connection to. Why is this important? Well the hero of the story is an assassin of sorts. Through his satellite internet connection to the retreated US populace in the “safe states”, the hero has become a hunter of corpses that are the former loved ones of paying clients in the safe states. He uses information about his target to determine where the corpse would be emotionally pulled to and he goes after the zombie to eliminate it. Then the relatives can go on with their lives knowing that their loved ones are no longer out in the world hungry, desparate and undead. The main character travels throughout the western part of the former USA on his hunts. So there are fights scenes and chase scenes – oh and the gore scenes. Funny enough, this is not what I like about survivalist and apocalypse themed books. So I skimmed these parts, however they are well written and with tight realistic action and humor. What’s that you ask? How can I like zombie books and not love the car and train chase scenes, fight and gore scenes? I like the collapse of society novels to read about what caused the collapse, how it happened, how people survived it and how people attempt to move-on past the collapse. The Return Man has that aspect, but it also centers more on a quest that needs to take place after the partial collapse of society and the fights and battles the leads must engage in to complete their quest. There are painful memories, witty jokes bantered about and fighting. Some other unique things about this book, there are references to both domestic and international politics. There is a themes of foreign espionage (the USA is no longer the strongest country on the planet), domestic terrorists, and the very conservative and fascist government that has arisen and is in control in the “safe states”. At the same time, the main character is plagued by his own emotional loss. The reader learns about these through flashback scenes. These touches to the post-zombie world make The Return Man different and interesting. It reads like an action packed thriller but instead of chasing down international secrets about warheads – an unlikely pair is chasing down a potential cure to the zombie plague fighting off zombies, domestic terrorists and international forces. This book was a lot of fun and I really hope there is a sequel! I believe fans of thrillers, zombie books and post-apocalyptic books will really enjoy the Return Man.