The Return
A Novel
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4.0 • 52 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Air and Shadows, the story of one man's fearless quest for revenge among some of the world's most dangerous criminals
Lauded as his #1 favorite book of the year, Stephen King advised President Obama, in the pages of Entertainment Weekly, to pick up Michael Gruber's previous book, The Good Son. With an unforgettable hero, The Return is as exciting and provocative as Gruber's best work.
The real Richard Marder would shock his acquaintances, if they ever met him. Even his wife, long dead, didn't know the real man behind the calm, cultured mask he presents to the world. Only an old army buddy from Vietnam, Patrick Skelly, knows what Marder is capable of. Then a shattering piece of news awakens Marder's buried desire for vengeance, and with nothing left to lose, he sets off to punish the people whose actions, years earlier, changed his life. Uninvited, Skelly shows up and together the two of them raise the stakes far beyond anything Marder could have envisioned.
As Marder and Skelly head toward an apocalypse of their own making, Marder learns that good motives and sense of justice can't always protect the people a man loves. A range of fearsomely real characters, from a brutally violent crime lord to a daringly courageous young woman, a roller-coaster of twists and turns, and a shattering exploration of what constitutes morality in the face of evil, Michael Gruber has once more proven that he is "a gifted and natural storyteller" (Chicago Tribune) and shows why he has been called "the Stephen King of crime writing" (The Denver Post).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The diagnosis of an inoperative brain tumor rouses New York book editor Richard Marder's desire for revenge in this convoluted, overwrought stand-alone from bestseller Gruber (The Good Son). Feeling he has nothing to lose, Marder puts his business affairs in order and buys a palatial beachfront estate in Mexico, where he plans to spend his last days tracking down the men who murdered his late wife's parents. Marder enlists the help of a fellow Vietnam vet, Patrick Francis Skelly, and together these old soldiers end up taking on two Mexican drug cartels that are at war with each other. The plot predictably disintegrates into a frenzy of battle scenes as Marder and Skelly, aided by the families who are squatters on the estate's grounds, make the most of a seemingly unlimited arsenal. Fans of action films starring Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone may be entertained, but readers should be prepared for one-dimensional characters and preposterous twists toward the finale.
