if (something bad)
      return;

It is good you are doing the early returns; it is bad you are failing silently. Return an error code.

if (something bad)
  return ESomethingBad;

if (something bad)
  throw ESomethingBad;

assert(!something bad);

if (something bad)
{
   std::clog << "something bad\n";
   return;
}