Review: The Return Man by V.M. Zito

The Return Man
Author: V.M. Zito
Publisher: Orbit
Publication Date: April 1, 2012
Pages: 416
Format: Paperback/Own

The outbreak tore the USA in two. The east remains a safe haven. The west has become a ravaged wilderness, known by survivors as 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.

Review: So my wonderful fiancee has been insisting I read this for some time now and I told him I'd finally do it in October. :) I really enjoyed this! He was right about it being something right up my alley. I love a good Zombie novel! I also love a good novel that takes place in the state I live in (Arizona). It's always a better reading experience when you know where things are happening and can visualize it more. 

So we have the US split in half. Anything East of the Mississippi is the safe states where the outbreak isn't happening, and anything West of the Mississippi is the evacuated states, where the dead are roaming and pretty much no one lives anymore. Our main character Henry Marco obviously is an exception. No, he hid from the military when they were evacuating people because he didn't want to leave thinking his zombified wife was still out there. And in swoops the main story. Marco pretty much becomes a zombie hitman. He's hired by people in the safe states to hunt down their loved ones and make them really dead, not walking dead. 

I really enjoyed this. I like how Marco learned to survive with the dead roaming. Picking strategic spots when on a hunt where he is either high up or has a good view around him. Using animals like vultures to figure out where crowds of zombies might be and to tell how far off they were. Minimizing noise so as not to attract more of them. Pretty damn smart. He also made a big wall around his home with all kinds of stuff just laying around now that its mostly dead around. Gotta protect your home base right?? I loved all the smart survival stuff in this. I also liked how Marco felt like it was his duty to make sure his wife was returned. She was always in the back of his mind whenever he was out on a job. He wanted the finality of knowing. I have to say, the whole story revolving around his and his wife's daughter was really heartbreaking for me. It definitely made me sad reading about how his daughter was born and that nothing could really be done for her. It definitely pulled on the heartstrings. 

I thought the Chinese agent, Kheng Wu was also interesting. He was trained in survival and needing no help and with pride for his country. He was planted in the US to find the person that Marco is eventually tasked with finding and to get a sample from him for China so they could have control over a potential vaccine for the outbreak over the rest of the world. He was definitely an interesting character. And he really fights some internal battles. He starts off only using Marco to get to Dr. Ballard's corpse, but the longer he travels with him, and gets to know bits and pieces about him, he starts to doubt whether he can fully complete his job. I thought this change was so key to him as a person. He wanted to do his country proud, no matter what the costs, but there always seemed to be a small part of him that knew some of the stuff he had to do didn't really need to be done. And we see that small part of him blossom. He genuinely comes to think of Marco a bit like a friend by the end of the book, not a means to an end. I thought Wu's character development was wonderfully done!

I thought this whole thing to find Dr. Ballard was interesting. We see Marco sent to find his corpse and to get a sample of his blood. He find out its because he was using himself to try and test a vaccine to the outbreak on himself. The government of course wanted to have a sample to try and actually make more progress on it. But wow. We eventually see Marco and Wu make their way to the prison where he was last seen and they actually find him in a completely different state than they were expecting. And they also find out he had far more information that the government suspected from all the research he was doing. I was not completely prepared for all the information we found out in the prison about the Outbreak. But it was incredibly interesting. I also have to wonder, if the outbreak occurred from a foreigner, why did no one in his home country become infected. You have to wonder. Were they that freaking good at hiding what this guy was carrying? 

And guys, I can't even wrap my head around the ending. Like it blew so much that we think from 3/4 of the book wide open. The government and the knowledge about Danielle's fate. That was a huge slap in the face to Marco. They knew what happened to her and they played along like they had no idea. That's just cruel. How there was other people after that sample as well. I mean, Marco was kinda blindsided by the fact there were people following and attacking him. And this whole thing were it seems like the US and China's governments were working together to get the sample for some reason. Like the freaking epilogue seriously opened this story up for a sequel. Why can't we have a sequel?? Especially since Marco decides to leave his home in Phoenix after all this stuff too. I really want to know where he goes and settles at after this! I don't like having to wonder about things like this. 

The only thing that really bothered me about this novel is that it had the typical feeling of a zombie novel. How you feel like you've heard the same generalized story about the zombies. That was my only issue. There was a lot of unique plot lines in this book, but the overall feel still felt like the normalized zombie novels we've all read. But obviously this didn't bother me much. I'm always up for a good zombie novel, even if they all have the same type of feel.