"Leaving to Return" by Marc Levy, summary

French author Marc Lévy’s novel was published in 2012. The narrative seamlessly blends detective storytelling, psychological drama, and thriller, where a supposed return to the past turns out to be the dying reflection of a fading mind. The work opens the author’s series about reporter Andrew Stillman. The second book in the series was Stronger Than Fear, published in 2013.

The Hudson River Attack and a False Second Chance

On the morning of July 9, 2012, 39-year-old New York Times journalist Andrew Stillman was out for his usual jog in Manhattan’s River Park when an unknown assailant stabbed him in the back with a long needle, damaging his kidney and abdominal aorta. Bleeding profusely, the reporter collapsed onto the pavement and lost consciousness.

Andrew had a long career, rising from obituary writer to senior investigator in the International Investigations Unit. A year earlier, he had met his high school sweetheart, Valerie Ramsey, a mounted police veterinarian. The couple rekindled their relationship and planned their wedding for late June 2012.

On the eve of his wedding, Andrew struck up a conversation with a mysterious dark-skinned stranger at the Novecento bar. His sudden obsession with her paralyzed him. On their wedding night, Stillman confessed to his wife that he was in love with someone else, and Valerie, in tears, threw him out.

After a week of torment, Andrew decided to beg his wife’s forgiveness, but during his morning jog on July 9th, he was attacked. In his agony, his consciousness is transported back sixty-two days — to the morning of May 7th, 2012. Finding himself alive in his own apartment next to Valerie, Stillman decides to use the two months he has left to track down his killer.

Circle of suspects

Stillman compiles a list of people who might want him dead. The list includes his envious colleague Freddie Olson, with whom Andrew has had a long-standing professional conflict. Freddie suffers from drug addiction, writes offensive reviews under the online pseudonym "Spooky Kid," and secretly investigates a series of stabbings in Manhattan.

Danger may also come from the subjects of previous publications. Andrew previously exposed the underground trade in Chinese children, in which American adoptive parents became unwitting accomplices. The editorial office received anonymous threats, and theology professor Frank Capetta attacked a reporter in a parking lot.

Capetta voluntarily returned the adopted girl to her birth parents in China, after which his wife, Paolina, fled with their son. With the help of retired detective Pilges, Stillman investigates the professor. Handwriting analysis reveals that the deadly messages were sent by Paolina, who harbored a bitter grudge against the reporter.

Andrew confides in his close friend Simon, the owner of a collector car shop, about what’s going on. Simon helps keep an eye on suspicious individuals while Stillman prepares for his second assignment in Buenos Aires.

Investigation in Argentina

Editor-in-chief Olivia Stern assigns Andrew to investigate the crimes of the Argentine military junta from 1976 to 1983. The reporter explores the history of secret concentration camps and "death flights," during which officers threw drugged prisoners from planes into the ocean.

The journalist focuses on former Air Force Major Felipe Ortiz. In the Argentine capital, Andrew is assisted by bartender Marisa, her aunt Luisa from the human rights movement Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, and her uncle Alberto, a former underground member of the Montoneros movement.

A contact reports that Ortiz has changed his identity to businessman Miguel Ortega and is running a tannery near Cordoba. Alberto’s associates crash Ortiz’s car on the highway near the village of Gahan.

Andrew pulls the injured Ortiz from the burning plane. Under threat of exposure, the elderly major confesses to thirty-seven missions with live cargo on board. Ortiz confirms that he raised Maria Luz, the daughter of tortured journalists Rafael and Isabel Santos.

After learning the truth about her adoptive father as a student, Maria Luz left home forever. Stillman promises not to reveal the old man’s new surname in the text, preserving only his confessions and the photographs taken by Marisa.

The bitter truth

Returning to New York, Stillman casts aside his doubts, resists temptation at a bar, and marries Valerie on June 30, 2012. Suddenly, reality begins to unravel: he experiences strange memory lapses, acute chills, and lower back pain.

In an envelope received from Argentina, Andrew finds a photo of the deceased Isabel Santos and is struck by her resemblance to his boss, Olivia Stern. The journalist goes to his boss’s office and shows her the photo.

Olivia confesses that she is the grown-up Maria Luz. Stern orchestrated the investigation through proxy means, using her connections to Luiza and archival information to bring down the executioner who raised her. On a shelf in the editor’s office, Stillman notices a portrait of her half-sister, Anna — Major Ortiz’s biological daughter.

The photo captures the same fatal brunette from the Novecento bar. A terrified Andrew runs out onto Eighth Avenue, where Anna, holding a slender stiletto, blocks his path.

The girl reveals the brutal truth to Stillman: no time jump ever occurred. Anna tracked down the journalist to avenge the destruction of her family’s peace and stabbed him during his morning jog on July 9th. The entire journey back in time was created by the reporter’s failing brain in the ambulance, while medics fought to save his life with a defibrillator.

At 7:42 a.m. on July 9, 2012, a dying Andrew is rushed to the intensive care unit. Simon and Valerie stand guard outside the operating room while surgeons stitch up the torn blood vessels. The next day, The New York Times publishes Stillman’s article on the front page, and a devoted Valerie reads it aloud at her comatose husband’s bedside.