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)

Sledge Hammer Vs a Zombie Al Qaeda and you have..!

Man, this new Joe Ledger series I found is awesome!! Joe Ledger is a smart ass, top U.S. Military leader, who is smart and a bad ass. This is like no other zombie book character out there. Storyline kinda follows the same path as the book "Day by Day Armageddon" where it is a daily/hourly/minutes chronicle of what is going on but with in its own style. You get so involved in all the different characters. The narrator did such an amazing job. I thought that Oliver Wyman from "The Morningstar Strain series" was the best zombie narrator but Ray Porter killed it! Not alot of "Zombies" as you would expect but the zombies in this story did not become the undead organically and it makes sense for the set up in this book 1.
I highly recommend this book 1 and my book 2 is downloading as i'm writing this review!!

-Big Art

A Very Fun Story

Any additional comments?

It seems like Joe Ledger is the Doppelganger for the the character John Corey by Nelson DeMille. Both are ex-cops that got sucked into working for the government. Even Ray Porter's narration often times reminded me a lot of Scott Brick.

Despite this, I did really enjoy this book. The action and choreographed fight scenes were perfect. I personally like the books where the protagonist is a bit of a smart ass bad-ass (Such as John Corey). The idea behind the story is a rather scary one and although we don't necessarily have the technology now (at least in the public's eye), I wonder when and if it will come.

This book was recommended to me after I postulated on Facebook about the two events that occurred recently in the news. One was the Miami Face Eater and the second was a man in New Jersey who was cutting himself open and throwing his intestines at the cops. These two events are being blamed on the use of Bath Salts. However, after reading up on Bath Salts, I've learned there is no test that can be administered to determine if someone is on the designer drug. In fact, one ER doc said they only could know if the person who came into the ER told them that's what it was. Consequently, the question arises, how did they know. I began to wonder if it was something viral, after all it is the CDC and not FEMA who has the new advertising gimmick about preparing for a zombie apocalypse. That's when a cousin told me about this book. One that makes my postulation possible.

In summation, I enjoyed this book. I don't really think something like this is truly possible but it was a fun story and I really hope it gets made into a movie.

Very Pleasantly Surprised

This story is not an apocalyptic novel or supernatural. It revolves around anti-terrorism and is almost believable. Maberry does a great job making it seem scientifically plausible to the average reader. I like that. Ray porter does a magnificent job telling the story. His Jack Ledger is awesome and much better than I was reading him when I started reading it on my own on the Kindle. I highly recommend this series. Later books aren't quite as good, but Ray Porter's delivery saves the day.

Good story, corny dialog

story was entertaining but the dialog was very corny. If you can get past that, it's not a bad read.

WOW

Held my breath for the last 20 minutes or so. Excited to see where the next stories take me.

Good Medical ScFi

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

It was entertaining and kept me involved

What did you like best about this story?

I simply like sci fi stories and the medical side was pretty interesting

zombies meets jack bauer

First off I have to say the narrator was amazing. His range of voices and ability to convey the meaning behind a lot of the tones, especially when it comes to the quirky and smartass Joe Ledger was amazing and made the book a whole lot more interesting. Especially with the POV switch which was a little bit confusing at fiest but Ray Porter did it well and I'm thankful for it.

I have a serious soft sport for military horror, especially when it comes to plagues and virus's and this book hit all the right spots. It was well paced, interesting, a thriller with a solid plot line and the main character was interesting and actually funny, i found myself smiling often when listening to it and even laughing a couple times. I enjoyed that there was a reason behind the zombies, and they explained it and the science was plausible. The supporting characters a fantastic and I liked that not they everyone gets along but they work together, which is a lot more accurate to the real world.

The only down side I would say is the romance in the book. It was rushed and it seemed that Grace Courtland went from not approving him to falling in love in a few short moments, which isn't the worst thing i the world but it felt a little contrived sometimes, but not the end of the world.

All in all, a fantastic read and I can't wait to read the others as well

#Violent #TorturedHero #Quirky #Monsters #Military #tagsgiving #sweepstakes

loved it

this was a great book and the story flowed very well. the author included many technical/ scientific aspects, which I truly enjoyed! The narrator was fantastic and quickly engaged the listener from the first sentence!

Hooked right away

hooked on books and narrator at the very beginning.
Fun and fast paced. a must listen.

Exciting action - Joe Ledger is a major stud

This is an Interesting story with great characters and dialog. The writing style is excellent - short powerful sentences. Goes back and forth between two locations: 1. Joe Ledger and Director Church action in the US; and, 2. foreign agent Gault action in Afghanistan along with the beautiful but evil scientist who is creating the zombie virus. Spanning both locations is the scarred Islamic terrorist/warrior. The bad guys are developing a virus that causes a person to die and come back as a zombie. Some want to unleash just a little of it on the world, and then provide the cure - simply to make billions and billions of dollars. Others want to unleash it on the world with only the bad guys being saved with the cure. Others want to stop its release at all cost.

The story gets a little bogged down sometimes, but mostly is exciting and tense. I was kept guessing until the end about the identity of the traitor in the government agency. The last few chapters involve two epic battles in two different locations. The author skips back and forth between the two battles and I was absolutely on the edge of my seat. The epilog contains a surprise twist which will probably play a part in the next book in the series, but it is not a cliff hanger. In my opinion the book wraps up this story quite well.

Ray Porter is excellent, as usual, in his performance of this book. He has a great voice and really knows how to build up the tension. He can also be soothing and smooth as silk. I consider him to be one of the top three narrators in the business,