The Return

January 30, 2017
An artfully crafted opening line (“If the conspiracy theorists are right and it never happened, then the day it didn’t happen began innocently enough”) paves the way for an intriguing setup in Helmreich’s debut novel of humankind’s first encounter with alien intelligence. The coinciding of a lunar eclipse with the winter solstice prompted television coverage that inadvertently captured live video of an alien abduction in California. The victim, “washed-up celebrity physicist” Dr. Andrew Leland, who had been retained to provide expert commentary on the celestial event, was seen lifted up into the sky by an unseen force emanating from a green structure. Almost seven years later, Leland is found wandering in a desert, but he denies knowing anything about the abduction, claiming that he retired from scientific research and has spent those years working as a farmhand. Brilliant young physicist Shawn Ferris becomes obsessed with learning the truth about what happened to Leland. The plot takes some clever turns, though the ending doesn’t quite live up to the beginning, and Helmreich’s characters are satisfyingly multidimensional.

Paul Michael Garcia gives a steady narration of this audiobook made of equal parts science fiction and suspense. Central to the story is Shawn, a young physicist who has become obsessed with the reappearance of Andrew Leland, also a physicist, a number of years after Leland was dramatically pulled into the sky by a mysterious light. Garcia brings an even, unruffled level of energy to Leland, capturing the timid man as someone who is easily manipulated. In contrast, Garcia's portrayal of Shawn embodies a restless energy that pulses with an intellect easily bored but tenacious in tracking Leland down and uncovering the conspiracy in which Leland has inadvertently become involved. J.E.M. � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine