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)

Unique Zombie novel

This story is a different take on the Zombie Apocalypse stories. It is exciting and the narrator, Ray Porter, is the BEST!

Love Joe Ledger and Jonathan Maberry

I stumbled upon this book as it was a free or sale item in 2019. Since then I have purchased all Joe Ledger books, other Jonathan Maberry books, and listened to this one alone 4 times now.

So much detail I have a movie in my head as I listen. Really enjoy the science mixed with fight sequences to be a better rounded story.

My favorite author so far

If you want your skin to crawl with the existential horror of things that could happen if even 1/8 of this book went down in real life… This is the book. My first read through a few years ago took me a week to read, mostly because I had to keep setting the book down to just think about the terrible possibilities. The audiobook was an amazing performance, I can see why the narrator gets such rave reviews.
So if you want action, adventure, and horror. This is the book. If you’re squeamish, not recommended.

Barely a Zombie Story

More of a secret agent vs. terrorist political thriller than a zombie horror story. The former is not my cup of tea, so with that in mind I rated it a 4 instead of a 3, because objectively speaking the story’s fairly interesting - if you like that kind of thing,

Great read

This book kept you wondering what was going to happen next. Worth the read thanks!

Makes ya glad this is fictional… for now

Chilling and keeps you guessing. Great job on narration - Ray Porter is one of the best in his field. Recommend this story if plague and zombies and intrigue are your thing. I liked this one. Thumbs up!

Great book

Was skeptical initially, but love ray porter as a narrator, and haven’t heard him read a bad book yet, so gave it a shot. Looking forward to hearing many more books by the author. Great read!

Very fun and sometimes emotional

Wow, what a read. Although, for the first portion of the book I resisted the premise, I must admit, suspension of disbelief is relative and this scenario is actually more realistic than many of the other ones presented from some of my favorite zombie books, films, and video games. Even more, in at least two separate occasions I was nearly brought to tears which is something that has never happened to me while reading a zombie novel such as this. The story unfolds via a fast-paced action adventure with a strong and likable lead. The suspense holds throughout the novel and keeps you on the edge of your seat. I am definitely going to read the next book in the series and additional books by this author.

Great book looking forward to the rest of the series

Great book looking forward to the rest of the series no doubt the rest will be just as exciting

Good

I liked the book was good got kinda confused on sum of the characters think I wasn't into parts of it kept getting distracted but did like the story was scary to think stuff like this can happen