The King of Plagues

The Joe Ledger Novels, Book 3

By: Jonathan Maberry

Narrated by: Ray Porter

Length: 16 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

Saturday, 0911 hours — A blast rocks a London hospital and thousands are dead or injured.

1009 hours — Joe Ledger arrives on scene to investigate. The horror is unlike anything he has ever seen.

Compelled by grief and rage, Ledger rejoins the Department of Military Sciences, and within hours he's attacked by a hit team of assassins and sent on a suicide mission into a viral hot zone during an Ebola outbreak.

Soon Ledger and the DMS begin tearing down the veils of deception to uncover a vast and powerful secret society using weaponized versions of the Ten Plagues of Egypt to destabilize world economies and profit from the resulting chaos. Millions will die unless Ledger meets this powerful new enemy on its own terms as he fights terror with terror.

Take another thrill ride with Joe Ledger.

©2011 Jonathan Maberry (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“A fast-paced, brilliantly written novel.” (Brad Thor)

good

as always, a very good story to listen to and very well read as well.

Science Fiction at it's best!

Enough science to make it believeable and enough fiction to make it very interesting. Well written and read! Hooray Captain Ledger!

Interlude after Interlude

The overall story was great. It's a great follow up to the other Joe Ledger novels. My biggest gripe is the way the story was constructed this go around. It was very distracting and made it difficult to get as immersed into this story.

It was chapter, interlude, chapter, interlude, interlude, chapter, chapter, interlude, and so on. It was really distracting and really made for bad story telling.

Overall the reader did a fantastic job and it was a great Joe Ledger story.

Kings and Plagues

The third full sized installment of the Joe Ledger series. Not quite what I expected. Without giving anything of the plot away, I was disappointed by the reuse of certain characters that I personally think had no place in this novel due to previous circumstances and wish that it had touched more on the cliffhanger at the end of the previous book. There are chapters added after the fact of each novel, that I have yet to read (or listen to) that may well answer questions as to how this book could even exist given the character choices, but it seems sloppy that I need to purchase miniature content that should have been included in the full sized novels just to fill in gaps in the story. That being said, Porter is phenomenal as always. The story itself is a far sight darker than the previous installments. Touching on coercion as the primary means of fulfilling evil goals. Unpleasant and not something I find to be fun to read or listen to, but Maberry can hardly be faulted for using the darker sides of humanity in a book revolving around human darkness. Overall, the King of Plagues was a good read, but was so vastly overshadowed by the original, Patient Zero, and even its direct predecessor, the Dragon Factory, that it makes itself seem weak. I loved the original two (mostly Patient Zero) for its combination of the highly improbable concept of scientifically created monsters and terrorist plots. This in my opinion is the beginning of a series that will do exactly what the Saw movies have done. Maberry will constantly try to one up himself and put the world in increasingly gruesome and terrible positions until the series inevitably runs out of steam. I hope that is not the case, but I started reading this series for the military/monster plots and this has since devolved into secret societies and shadowy organizations which I find to be much more boring than the borderline impossible. Thanks for reading.

Another great book

Keep you wondering what is going to happen. The book is not predictable at all you find out what's happening as the characters do and it really adds to the book

Another Joe Ledger winner

Lots of action and keeps on hitting hard. Wasn't a huge fan of the multiple interludes but the story was excellent.

I f-ing love this series!

As far as Joe Ledger books are concerned, this one seemed slow, but I never lost interest. Amazing research has been done to produce this book and others in the series, but all of that would be for not if you didn't care about the characters. Mayberry has made me thoroughly care for the characters and the calamities they face. can't get enough of Joe Frieking Ledger!

Better the Second Time

What made the experience of listening to The King of Plagues the most enjoyable?

This is my second go-round. I read the entire series, figured out the order of the mini-books, put them where they belong and started over. I love Hugo. I love Toys. i LOVE Joe Ledger. Ray Porter does them all justice.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The King of Plagues?

Really? There are too many.

What about Ray Porter’s performance did you like?

Everything. Especially after listening to the interview with him and Ray Maberry in the Special Ops set of shorts. I smile every minute I'm listening to these.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Yeah, but it would let secrets go, so I can't say.

Any additional comments?

I love the series. I'm just not sure what I"m going to do when I'm finished with it the second time.

Never a disappointment

The narrator brings this amazing series to life. I absolutely suggest this series, intense, humorous (i literally laughed out loud at parts), and emotionally engaging. I am loving this series as of this book, I am now moving on to the next with great expectations!!!

Great book

He never disappoints. Each book is high quality and very interesting. I've become a big fan