Patient Zero

The Joe Ledger Novels, Book 1

By: Jonathan Maberry

Narrated by: Ray Porter

Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

From multiple Bram Stoker Award-winning author Jonathan Maberry comes a major new thriller that combines the best of the New York Times best-selling books World War Z by Max Brooks and James Rollins’ Sigma Force Series to kick off the start of a new series featuring Joe Ledger and the Department of Military Sciences.

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 who has just been secretly recruited by the government to lead a new task force 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 bioweapon that can turn ordinary people into zombies. The fate of the world hangs in the balance.

Jonathan Maberry is the New York Times best-selling and multiple Bram Stoker Award–winning author of Ghost Road Blues, the first of a trilogy of thrillers with a supernatural bite. A professional writer and writing teacher, he has sold more than 1.000 articles, 17 nonfiction books, six novels, and two plays.

©2009 Jonathan Maberry (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Brilliant, shocking, horrifying, it puts the terror back in terrorist.” (James Rollins, New York Times best-selling author)

“Plenty of man-to-zombie combat, a team traitor and a doomsday scenario add up to a fast and furious read.” ( Publishers Weekly)

"Jonathan Maberry has found a delightful voice for this adventure of Joe Ledger and his crew: while the action is heated, violent, and furious, the writing remains cool, steady, and low-key, framing all the wildness and exuberance in a calm rationality (given an almost comic edge) that renders it as palatable as your favorite flavor of ice cream." (Peter Straub)

Good start, poor ending.

Strong start, but towards the end everything was just completely predictable. Too many cliches, and things pulled from 80s action films. Ray Porter did a fantastic job narrating, and was the only thing that kept me on track to finishing the book.

Prions are real

So, I picked up this book during the 2 for 1 promotion. I was intrigued because of the fact that the author was going to tackle HOW the zombies were created. Most other stories are pretty vague, if they say anything at all. I played that portion of the book for my daughter because she knows as much as it's possible to know about prions. She said he has the science dead on. Of course he had to alter it with SCIENCE FICTION to make the zombies. That was the point of the book and it was great. The whole premise was outstanding. I give him 5 stars for plot. My problem is with execution. Joe gets on my nerves so badly. The author spends pages and pages building up Joe into this super human zombie hunter. I kept waiting for someone to say, *He can leap tall buildings.....*! Well, I think I made my point. I don't know. It just seems like any time the guy is described it with this sort of reverence in which you can almost hear a heavenly host singing. Okay, that's hyperbole. Several different characters tediously describe Joe and they all go on an on about how amazing he is. Not to mention the authors own descriptive narrative. I started to get the feeling that Mr. Maberry was possibly living vicariously through Joe Ledger. Or possibly J. M is targeting a specific audience? I'm guessing his preferred audience is young guys?

Zombies Attack

The Terrorist unleash the deadly disease and a cop is recruited to lead a team of men into battle to stop the terrorists and the disease before it goes Nation Wide on the United States.

For those who would love a good action/special forces with a bit of zombie plague thrown in for good measure.

Excellent story line- makes me wish I read the book too. Performance was outstanding and the reader did a superb job with all the different voices and characters - top notch story

Very Entertaining!

great narrator and story...beautifully flowed. Going to read more from this author! 😁 must read!

awesome

loved the story. was pleasantly surprised and already purchased the following book in the series.

I pivoted with every chapter

I enjoyed a good zombie tail and this was no exception. It was a nice departure from the normal apocalypse of most zombie reads with the zombie aspect not even really the main story. I also enjoyed the narrator, with some it takes a chapter or two to get used to them (which can at times be distracting to the story) but I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy this from the start. My only complaint would be that the author couldn't fit the word or some form of "pivot" into the story a few hundred more times .....

it's coo

He's no Scott Sigler or Mike Bennett but a fair supplement if you drive a lot like me for work and need a good sci-fi story to kill time.

You hooked me - I've joined the Maberry party

Fantastic, gritty realism without being bleak. Hard to believe that anybody could have an original concept book with zombies, but Maberry does it spectacularly. Gripping realism in both the police procedural elements to the realistic fight scenes and a vivid take on both a hero’s rise and horror. I will be reading all of your book now, thank you very much. Talented voice artist. Sorry I’m so late to the Maberry party.

Holy hell batman..

Loved it.. great work all around... and the narrator was perfect for this book! I'll get more books by Mr. Mayberry..