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…”

What do I have to say about The Return Man? Uhm…Holy Crap, comes to mind. This book delivers an action packed story with a superbly-plotted and elaborate storyline. I originally found this story online, where the author, V.M. Zito, posted a few sample chapters for anyone to read. I read the first chapter and I was hooked. That means a lot more than you think because I am not a fan of reading a story from a computer screen, but I was engrossed in The Return Man, and I had to know what happened. So, about a year later, the book was released and I started reading it….and wow, this book does not disappoint and it only gets better and better from the first to last page.

Characters: The story doesn’t have that many characters to it, but the ones that are there are personable and fleshed out well, instead of being cardboard cut-outs that show up frequently in zombie stories. The story centralises around the journey of Henry Marco and Wu into the Evacuated States. Both of these characters are realistically presented and they were very life like on the page, very engaging and interesting characters. By the end of this story, I was very connected with these characters, specifically that of Henry Marco: a smart-ass who—despite his survival skills—always manages to get into a mess. By the end of the book, I felt so connected with the character of Marco that I wished the book didn’t end, not only due to the good storyline, but because I wanted to see more of the character. Solid character development here folks.

Writing style: This is the novel’s strongest quality. This is perhaps the most well written zombie novel I’ve come across yet. The writing style is clear-cut, fluid and his descriptive scenes are rife with vivid imagery. His style reminds me a lot of Matheson and his hauntingly poetic style of storytelling. What astounds me the most about V. M. Zito’s writing style is that he has a perfect balance between the types of scenes he writes. His ability to draw the story’s environment is masterful, but his fluid descriptive style also expands well to his action scenes. The high octane action scenes are exhilarating, with the next scene outdoing the last, bringing the reader on a wicked ride into this zombie infested wasteland. He deserves a lot of points and recognition for bringing a fresh style of writing into the genre.

Gore: Oh yeah baby, this is where the meat of this review is. This story has some of the most gruesomely described zombies and gore scenes to grace the genre. Being a gore-hound, I was surprised by how morbid and sickening his scenes were. It’s surprising because seldom do I find a novel that has a strong plot, personable characters, well-orchestrated action scenes as well as an eye for gore. Also, another admirable part of this novel is the balance between the horde and individual zombies. I have read a lot of zombie novels where the author was great at describing individual zombies, but ended up losing the effect of the horde, because they spent so much time describing particular zombies, they fall short when trying to describe the presence of the horde, and how it has a claustrophobic effect. (That’s something that made fans of Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead rave, it was the feeling of claustrophobia as the horde slowly marched towards you, surrounding you, that scared viewers.) But V.M. Zito does a stellar job balancing between describing Hordes of zombies and individual zombies. Some of his close-up zombie scenes are gruesome and horrific, and then other scenes, it’s creepy and terrifying because of how well he can describe the surrounding horde. He gets points for both the gore and claustrophobic factors, which worked hand-in-hand with his action scenes.

Overall: This is the closest thing to a perfect zombie novel that I have read yet. The storyline is original, the characters are alive on the page, the action and gore scenes are top-notch, the writing is superb, and it’s a fun time. This is a damn good book and it has potential to be a zombie classic.

Available on Amazon