The Return: A Novel

Summary

Lauded as his number-one favorite book of the year, StephenKing advised President Obama, in the pages of Entertainment Weekly, to pick up Michael Gruber’s previous book, The Good Son. With an unforgettablehero, The Return is as exciting andprovocative as Gruber’s best work.

The real Richard Marder would shock his acquaintances, ifthey ever met him. Even his wife, long dead, didn’t know the real man behindthe calm, cultured mask he presents to the world. Only an old army buddy fromVietnam, Patrick Skelly, knows what Marder is capable of. Then, a shatteringpiece of news awakens Marder’s buried desire for vengeance; with nothing leftto lose, he sets off to punish the people whose actions changed his life yearsearlier. Skelly shows up uninvited, and the two of them together raise thestakes far beyond anything Marder could have envisioned.

As Marder and Skelly head toward an apocalypse oftheir own making, Marder learns that good motives and a sense of justice can’talways protect the people a man loves. With a range of fearsomely real characters,from a brutally violent crime lord to a daringly courageous young woman, aroller coaster of twists and turns, and a shattering exploration of whatconstitutes morality in the face of evil, Michael Gruber has once more proventhat he is “a gifted and natural storyteller” (Chicago Tribune) and shows why he has been called “the Stephen Kingof crime writing” (Denver Post).