Promotional Information

Civilisation's gone ... He's stayed to bury the dead.

About the Author

V. M. Zito resides in Connecticut, USA with his wife and daughter. When not writing, he spends his weekdays working as Creative Director at a New England ad agency and his weekends running on forested trails. THE RETURN MAN is his first novel.

Reviews

Zito expertly piles on thrills, cliffhangers and numerous twists, investing renewed life into the shambling, clich?-ridden corpse of the zombie subgenre. - GuardianBloody excellent. - Financial TimesZito expertly piles on thrills, cliffhangers and numerous twists, investing renewed life into the shambling, clich?-ridden corpse of the zombie subgenre. - GuardianAn overload of thrills, spills and adventure. - SunHands down one of the best zombie novels I've read in a long, long time. From first page to last, THE RETURN MAN is an astonishing read. With characters you genuinely give a damn about and a story that'll keep you turning page after page, this is an outstanding debut. - David Moody, author of AutumnHands down one of the best zombie novels I've read in a long, long time. From first page to last, THE RETURN MAN is an astonishing read. With characters you genuinely give a damn about and a story that'll keep you turning page after page, this is an outstanding debut. - David Moody, author of AutumnA highlight of the subgenre. - Best Horror Novel 2011, drying-ink.blogspot.com. . . a perfectly balanced layer cake of action and horror . . . This is a stunning debut and matches the feelings I had when I first read the likes of World War Z and Hater . . . you are unlikely to experience a better crafted and adrenalin fuelled thrill ride than V.M. Zito's novel THE RETURN MAN. - www.liberationfrequency.co.uk

Zito's debut is thrilling, melancholy, and stomach-churningly gory. In the desolate heat and haunting emptiness of the zombie-infested American Southwest, ex-neurologist Henry Marco is hired by the living to "return" their undead loved ones, a euphemism for blowing their brains out. Marco also yearns to find and "return" his own wife. Hired by the Department of Homeland Security to track down a scientist who may have developed a cure, Marco embarks on a journey across the desert, encountering packs of shuffling, flesh-chewing zombies; sadistic gangs of bikers; and a Chinese assassin with whom he inadvertently teams up. Zito amps up the action with a nightmarish showdown in the bowels of an abandoned prison and viscerally unbearable descriptions of human mutilations. The zombies are pretty standard and Marco's philosophical ruminations are sometimes both redundant and expository, but taken as a whole, this is a sturdy and crowd-pleasing novel that squarely hits its target. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

It has been four years since the Resurrection split the United States into two nations: the eastern Safe States, overcrowded by 50 million refugees with not enough food, supplies, or jobs to go around, and the western Evacuated States, the silent wastelands of the living dead. It is here that Henry Marco, former neurologist and bounty hunter for hire, makes his living. Engaged by grief-stricken survivors, he hunts down living dead loved ones and puts them to rest-that is, he kills them. Marco is highly skilled at his job, so much so that Homeland Security wants him for a secret mission vital to the future of America. When he teams up with Kheng Wu, a Chinese secret agent disguised as an American soldier sent to back him up, he's in for the ride of his life through a world dominated by death. VERDICT Zito's debut is stunning, a harrowing, haunting, and beautifully written novel that belongs on the very top shelf of the zombie canon alongside Max Brooks's World War Z, Mira Grant's "Feed" series (Feed; Deadline), and the groundbreaking Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. [In June, Orbit will publish Blackout, Grant's concluding volume to her zombie trilogy.-Ed.]-Jeanne Bogino, New Lebanon Lib., NY (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.