Patient Zero: A Joe Ledger Novel (Joe Ledger, 1) Mass Market Paperback – January 28, 2014

Joe Ledger is a Baltimore cop who has been recruited by the Department of Military Science (DMS) which is a government agency that dwells in the shadows and is only answerable to the President of the United States. Their purpose is to combat threats that are beyond the scope of even the most elite US military units and law enforcement agencies.What's the threat that Ledger has been enlisted to fight against? One of the most wanted Islamic terrorists in the world, El Mujahid, has gotten his hands on a bioweapon that could make the entire human race go extinct. The bioweapon causes people to turn into zombies! In an unholy alliance, the terrorist group is being financed by Sebastian Gault, the owner of the most powerful and influential pharmaceutical company on the planet. El Mujahid is in it to strike an apocalyptic blow against America. Gault is in it to make trillions of dollars selling the cure for the zombie virus. Let's just say Mujahid and Gault don't exactly see eye to eye on the final endgame.Some zombies have been infiltrated into the US in cold storage so its up to Joe and a hastily assembled strike team to get intel about the terrorists plans.I know, aren't we about zombied out by now? Like the overinundation with vampires after Twilight or cheap mom sex after 50 Shades of Grey. The answer? Not quite. You're looking at the man who finally got around to reading Anna Karenina by Tolstoy after decades of beating around the bush. I was completely horrified by the utter banality of it all and quit reading about 60% through the novel. I felt like I had wasted two months of my life. So I was ready for a light and entertaining easy read that wouldn't strain my brain cells.At first I thought I wouldn't make it through this book because our hero Joe Ledger seemed like such a basic dudebro horndog. But he began to grow on me and matured a bit. One of the suprising things about this novel is that killing zombies and killing people actually takes a toll on the good guys. This isn't the point click and shoot morality of a videogame. People are scarred when they take lives. They have to deal with mental issues because they are facing the impossibility of people rising from the dead to eat them. I really liked Maberry's realistic take on it. I feel like even in shows like The Walking Dead, the cast quickly got over the new reality of zombies walking around.The action in the book was done really well, even though Joe's team members were almost anonymous and hard to visualize. They just became names to me and never really developed their own personalities. The MAIN players were all written well though: the leader of the DMS, Gault, Mujahid, and another DMS squad leader, Grace. All these characters had their levels of mystery and really intrigued me.The novel does get a bit wacky and reads like a cross between James Bond and World War Z. Sebastian Gault is the super villain with his limitless sums of money and secret lairs with all the science fiction tech. DMS has a super computer that can comb the world for any scrap of information the department needs. But it never gets really corny. I felt like Maberry just tipped his hat to those worlds.I will definitely give the next book in the series a try.

This was an amazing journey. Not your ordinary "Zombie" tale, but something much deeper. On some level, maybe even more disturbing becuse you realize that these "walkers" are not just flesh-eating monster, but everyday ordinary people turned victim.As a retired virlolgist, I found the science quite accurate, allowing for the fictional aspect of the story. The use of prions, instead of just viruses, was uniqe.All in all, this was a meaty horror story, wrapped in a mystery, and baked in action/adventure. I highly recommend this for anyone who likes horror, zombies, and realism.

Jonathan Maberry has created a great new action/thriller character, Joe Ledger, in his novel "Patient Zero". Ledger is a tough, intuitive Baltimore cop, a natural born leader of men who gets co-opted to lead a rapid response assault team for a secret government organization. The Department of Military Science (DMS) is a clandestine top secret government force designed to go beyond Homeland Security efforts to protect the US from bizarre and inexplicable terrorist attacks. The mysterious, enigmatic, and powerful Mr. Church enlists the reluctant Ledger to become a captain in his organization after watching him kill the same terrorist twice in a matter of days. The position ultimately appeals to the patriot and the warrior who make up a big part of who Joe Ledger is.Joe and a hastily assembled team are thrust into immediate battles with the zombies (walkers) and their supporters. A brilliant mind in the Middle East has created a bio-weapon that turns ordinary people into ravenous, crazed zombies in an effort to ostensibly create social and financial terror in the US but perhaps with the real goal of destroying all infidels. Joe and his team must ferret out all the zombie "cells" already here and avert a catastrophe that could destroy all human life on the American continent. While the major characters are fully fleshed by Maberry, most of the secondary players seem straight from central casting, including most of Joe's new "team". The pacing is brutal at times although the technique of using alternate chapters to flash back and forth from the US to the Middle East to provide more back story and real time action does lead, at times, to distraction.While this is a rollicking, fast paced, violent and, often gory tale, it does call for a strong dose of suspension of disbelief from the interested reader. There is a great deal of Michael Crichton-like scientific discussion to explain the "prion" technology that is employed as a bio-weapon that turns people into highly infectious zombies. For me, a little of this scientific rambling seems to go a long way...less is more...but too much becomes distracting to the suspense. Also, the human versus zombie battles seem to go on forever at times prompting the question, "Is this fight going to end before I drop the book in breathless exhaustion?"I will definitely read the next Joe Ledger novel should there be one. I expect there will be both because he is an exciting conflicted character and because the author left one thread unresolved in an obvious indication that a sequel is in the works. A great read both for fans of the zombie genre as well as fans of strong, likable hero-types thrust into a thrilling and suspense filled milieu.

I grew up thinking the government was good, at its core, or at least there were some people there doing the right thing to keep us safe. I grew up reading Mack Bolen, Phoenix Force, and Able Team. I wanted to believe that there was a good in the government and not just the dredge you see on TV, depending on which channel you picked.Joe Ledger takes me back to that era. It’s an easy and enjoyable read, for me. Characters are well thought out with just enough stereotype thrown in you can imagine who they are. Dealing with “real” from our nightmares, and the corruption of the government, DMS is able to get it done. It’s never clean and it’s never black and white, but it’s done and the threat to the USA and the world stopped.I will take note on the complaints of Mr Mayberry allowing politic into his novels. I don’t see him as one or the other, political. I have to say when dealing with lots of money and super secret departments, best to keep politicians out of it. He does a good job, like I said before, like the authors of Phoenix Force and Able Team.

Have you ever wondered what you would get if you took all the Micheal Chricton novels, the X-Files, The Marvel comics and the works of Dan Brown, put them in a blender, and seasoned the resulting pulp fiction with a whole bunch of cocaine? Well, you would most likely get a large pile of shredded paper, and possibly arrested for the cocaine if you weren't careful. If you were lucky though, you might just get the Joe Ledger series.Im not going to pretend that these are novels with much literary merit to them. They will not challenge you, you will not find life changing story arcs, or even many characters with any real dynamism. What you will find is pure story telling at it's finest and most outlandish, action that rips past you at the speed of light, sucks you in, and refuses to let go.I really reccomend these, I dived into patient zero while looking for a good zombie book and I am glad I found this series. Daft, silly, and great fun.

The idea that underpins the story is very good. A very advanced biotech company develops a virus that kills the victim but keeps them walking until they have bitten somebody to infect them with the deadly virus. It is terrifying. But money will be made out of providing the antidote.The genius behind the biotech company teams up with Islamic terrorists to hatch a plot which is going to kill the United States of America.In the meantime, Baltimore Detective Joe Ledger is recruited into the top secret unit, Department of Military Science, DMS, which is dealing with the threat. He is a super-hard policeman, although I had to laugh at part of his assessment. The head of the DMS is the mysterious Mr Church, who is answerable only to the president.“Elapsed time from the slide locking back to completed kill is 0.031 seconds,” said Church. “Tell me why I want him for the DMS.”Can you believe that anyone can react to an event and complete a move to kill somebody in three-hundredths of a second? The move itself would have taken over half a second.There were a few more minor irritations.“Sure, what do you want?” “My usual. Iced half-caf ristretto quad grande two pump raspberry two percent no whip light ice with caramel drizzle three-and-a-half-pump white mocha.” “Is any of that actually coffee?” “More or less.” “And you think I’m damaged.”Is that necessary?Counting Javad, our patient zero, we have a loss of life totaling one hundred and eighty-eight civilians and twenty-four DMS operatives. Two hundred and ten deaths as a result of one carrier.I make that 212.“LOL,” Bunny murmured.Clearly didn’t laugh out loud if he was murmuring!“I hate to break up this Dr. Phil moment but I kind have to go fight some zombies.”Where does “like” come into it?Those irritations aside, the tension in the story builds with a race against time to save humanity.The middle section of the book became a bit predictable and boring for me, as it resembled a shoot-em-up computer game, but the last third was all action and compulsive reading, with lots of twists and turns.It is exciting, and the ending is good.I really don’t know what “normal” zombie stories are like, but I believe that this one would be different. I enjoyed the ride.

Patient Zero flagged as a recommendation on Amazon after I bought  Turn Coat (Dresden Files 11)  some time ago. After reading the synopsis I dismissed it as a dumb action horror novel; all mindless gore and guns.The recommendation reappeared after I bought Chris Farnsworth's extremely enjoyable Vampire/Espionage cross-over  Blood Oath  (highly recommended and definitely not a Twilight or Tru Blood cash-in). This time there were some readers reviews to go with the synopsis, and these suggested that contrary to appearances there was more to Patient Zero than a muscle-bound hero blowing away Zombie hordes. The fact that Nick Brett, whose reviews I generally trust, thought it a fun read made me think twice and so I took the plunge.I am very glad I did, because Patient Zero is not at all the sort of book I was expecting. Even with the positive reviews I was still thinking it would be a mash-up of a Matthew Reilly novel, all frenetic but implausible action, and Romero's Living Dead movies. I pretty much dismissed reviewers reference to Michael Chrichton as overly excessive praise. It turns out that, whilst I still can't really see the similarities with Chrichton's work, Patient Zero is very far from being just action and zombies. It is a proper, adult thriller with a relatively complex plot, some decent characterisation (for the genre) and at least a stab at making the science behind the 'zombies' (or 'Walkers' as the book calls them) sound plausible.There is plenty of action of course; some of the most intense and best written I have come across in a while. One seemingly last, desperate stand by the book's heroes was so tense that I literally felt impelled to keep turning the pages to find out how it ended. The story as a whole in fact, has a feel of constant forward momentum that keeps you gripped from start to finish, but avoids being a headlong rush of constant action that just becomes wearisome. There are plenty of quieter moments, allowing Maberry to give key characters a little more depth or provide some necessary exposition.I've not read any of Maberry's previous novels so can't compare them to Patient Zero, but he's obviously a writer with some talent. Structure, descriptions and dialogue are all first rate and as I've said before he's a great writer of clear but ferocious action. He does go slightly OTT on the emotional analysis from time to time and as another reviewer has pointed out some of the cod-psychobabble he throws in just feels out of place, but these are minor quibbles.There are also some significant holes in the plot he has come up with, with characters making decisions that simply defy logic if you think about them too much and conspiracies that are far too overly complex, but such is the book's momentum that these pass you by whilst you're reading it. Just don't think too hard about it afterwards.The final act is also a little messy. After the bavura Alamo-style last-stand two thirds of the way through anything less was going to feel like a bit of an anticlimax, but the final series of events simply has too much going on, with parallel plot threads being tied up simultaneously and numerous threats to be taken care of. Although its never gets confusing its doesn't really flow either.Its not enough to really detract from all the great stuff that has gone before however, and overall Patient Zero is more than deserving of four stars. If I didn't have a stack of other books to read I'd probably be ordering the next book in the series,  The Dragon Factory , right now. As it is it is going straight to the top of my wishlist. Turn Coat (Dresden Files 11)Blood OathThe Dragon Factory

Joe Ledger is a martial arts expert, former US Army, turned cop, and now on the road to joining the FBI. During a raid on a suspected terrorist base, he has to kill a number of hostiles and is suspended. Whilst on suspension he is picked up by FBI agents and taken to a facility where he is forced to kill again - except he's already killed this man once before!He meets Mr Church, a mysterious man fronting an equally mysterious and highly top-secret organisation known as DMS - Department of Military Sciences - answerable only to the President of the US, and a man who scares even Joe. Offered a job, Joe takes command of Echo Squad, a small, newly formed team of specialist, and meets Major Grace Courtland, on loan from the British military, and together they are thrown into the middle of a scenario straight from a sane person's worst nightmare, and proof that you can't keep a good - or bad man down: not unless you blow their head off first.In a helter-skelter race against time they face an enemy bent of eradicating all but those they deem fit to continue living - well, at least it's a form of life. Just where do they intend to strike and how can you kill an army of your own citizens that won't stay dead?This is a well-written, pacey action thriller, with shocks and horror aplenty, and just a tad of humour to stop it being unrelentless. An easy but gripping read.

This book is what is best described as every cliche out of an action film, ever, in book form. It's not exactly literary genius, but it isn't poor as some books I have read on Amazon recently have been.Ultimately if you want something trashy to fill a few hours, this is perfect. It's entertaining, quite straight forward, and a lot of fun. Reminds me some what of the Clive Cussler books in that sense - and it does a perfectly good job.Patient Zero tells the story of the DMS, Department of Military Science, who take on a terrorist trying to create zombies as a bioweapon for an attack on America. I did not realise that this was the first in a series of books about the main character, so my initial expectation was that it would go in a more World War Z fashion, but I still really enjoyed it nonetheless. I do recommend it if you're looking for some simple action writing.