Patient Zero (Joe Ledger, #1)

by Jonathan Maberry

When you have to kill the same terrorist twice in one week there's either something wrong with your world or something wrong with your skills...and there's nothing wrong with Joe Ledger's skills. And that's both a good, and a bad thing. It's good because he's a Baltimore detective that has just been secretly recruited by the government to lead a new taskforce created to deal with the problems that Homeland Security can't handle. This rapid response group is called the Department of Military Sciences or the DMS for short. It's bad because his first mission is to help stop a group of terrorists from releasing a dreadful bio-weapon that can turn ordinary people into zombies. The fate of the world hangs in the balance...

• ISBN10: 0312382855
• ISBN13: 9780312382858
• Publish Date: 3 March 2009
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 11 March 2010
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Saint Martin's Griffin,U.S.
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 464
• Language: English

Reviews

[Leigha]

Detective Joe Ledger gets recruited into the super secret Department of Military Sciences in this action packed adult horror suspense.

I picked this book up on Audible when it was on sale recently. The tense plot, atmospheric setting, and complex characters were the perfect read this Halloween season. Joe was an extremely snarky and likeable character. His inner turmoil and his steely demeanor mixed wonderfully with the large cast of characters, particularly Grace and Rudy. The science was frighteningly believable – I didn’t always understand the military or medical jargon, but it all sounded plausible.

The narration was phenomenal. The last year I’ve discovered a love for listening to scientific and/or procedural books. Perhaps it seems more plausible hearing it aloud than it does in my head? Not sure, but I doubt I would have finished this book without it. The narrator does an impressive job with the entire cast of characters. Considering the story is told through various points of view, it’s an achievement to make each character sound so distinctive.

tl;dr An action-packed plot and a well-developed cast of characters mixed with excellent narration made this unputdownable.

[leahrosereads]

Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry is the first novel in his Joe Ledger series, and it’s a fantastic first novel in a series.

I thought Maberry did an excellent job introducing his main character, Joe Ledger - the BAMF Baltimore detective recruited into a secret government organization, the Department of Military Sciences (DMS). He’s a smart mouthed cop with excellent investigative skills, with a ruthless personality when his Warrior personality comes out to play.

He and Echo Team work together to attempt to stop terrorists from releasing a plague that would cause a zombie apocalypse. It's a rough ride for the DMS and Joe, as they scramble to succeed.