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)

Better than anticipated

First let me say I love Ray Porter, and his voice and narrative style will get me (and probably you) into a book I may not have enjoyed actually reading.

Second, Zombies really aren't my thing - but Maberry's approach is refreshing, and none of the characters ever lose their "you have to be kidding me - zombies?!" attitude that adds a nice touch of realism.

A good book, with a great narrator - get it!

J

Don't Judge a Book by Its' Cover ~ Awesome

Seriously, I must have considered purchasing this book over ten times but looked at its' cover and did not even go on to the reviews. Thankfully I finally read some reviews and bought it. Surpassed even my most hopeful expectations! Super fun, LOL funny at times, superbly written, even super plausible-ish. Just read a little...then swoosh ~ you'll quickly be drawn in for a wild ride. Enjoy it in a place where you won't be judged if you stand around quietly, concentrating intensely only to break out in loud laughter now and then.

great book!

I have no idea why audible didint put this on my rec list! Thank goodness for good reads. I'm going to burn through the rest of the series now. I will change my review if this series declines like Mark Tufo's books. *shudders * god those got bad....

Fun Story and Great Performance

What made the experience of listening to Patient Zero the most enjoyable?

Jonathan Maberry's dialog is crisp and well written and he used words that the characters themselves would've chosen; their dialog is written as if they were actually the ones talking. In exposition (Joe's thinking, or Sebastian's thinking, etc.), the words he chose and the tone with which he used them are informed by the nature of the character rather than just straight expository statements.

Ray Porter doesn't just read the words; he imbues them with the personality of each character and he truly understands the nuances of the words as they were intended to be read. He switches between accents smoothly and deftly without any carry-over into the next character's speech/dialog/response. He's just terrific!

Who was your favorite character and why?

Hands down, Joe Ledger. Of course, he's the hero of the story but he's just a neat guy.

Which character – as performed by Ray Porter – was your favorite?

Again, Joe Ledger. Ray Porter IS Joe Ledger; he doesn't just read the words.

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

Grace tells Joe about her past and at that point she becomes a real person to Joe rather than a hard-as-tacks Major in the SAS. Very well done.

Any additional comments?

Sure, this is a zombie book, but it's so much more than that. The zombies are, in fact, just a vehicle for the REAL story which is about the tug-of-war between good and evil. The characters are well drawn and Ray Porter's performance is outstanding. I will DEFINITELY get the rest of the series!

Ray Porter did a fine job....

The story is a bit silly. The plot is formulaic. The characters are rather wooden.
Ray Porter did a fine job here, though there were times I thought I could practicaly hear the groan in his mind as he encountered something perhaps worthy of a touch of scorn (though I may have imagined it). I would be willing to check out more of his work. The Joe Ledger series is probably not going to become part of my audible experience, but that doesn't mean I couldn't find some aspects of the book enoyable.

This did feel like a cheap knock-off of Lee Childs' Jack Reacher novels with the clumsy addition of "zombies" (should we actually them zombies?).

The archetypal overreaching Bond-style villain bent on world domination (or destruction in some cases) is just too absurd. I understand this is fiction, but villains ruin the story when they become catoonishly evil.
I was hoping for a zombie/survival story, but the only scary thing here is that the terrorists truly believe what they claim to-- which points a flashlight towards some of the most insidious aspects of fundamentalism of any religion; namely, those that truly believe god is on their side are capable of absolutely terrifying and horrific acts.

We could have left this book as simply a "terrorist cell vs a one man army" type of story with no need for the quasi-zombies. But it is what it is. And taken as is, it is somewhat entertaining.

Excellence in its finest

Wasn't sure what to think of this book before I downloaded it. It is a very well written, well thought out book. Lots of zomie action, high quality characters that you actually care about, and a real kick ass main character! Johnathan Maberry has scored a home run with this gem! Pick it up today!

Check a medical dictionary for pronunciation!

The book is a fun listen. The chapters bounce between the United States, southern Asia, and the Middle East so the variety of scenes, characters, and plot lines adds intrigue to the book.

My biggest complaint about the book is the narrator, who, at times, is great. But then he's not. He does most characters' voices well, even a British woman, but other voices sound like a mixture of a really dull-minded caveman and a robot.

Also, the word "prion" comes up a lot in the book, but the narrator consistently mispronounces it, sending shivers down my spine. "Prion" is a portmanteau, a combination of "pro(teinaceous)" and "in(fectious)." It's not a common word so one would think the narrator would have consulted, ideally, a medical dictionary but even a regular dictionary would have shown the correct pronunciation, which is [PREE - on], not [PRY - on], as the narrator says.

looking forward to more from Maberry...

Oh wow what can I say...Joe Ledger is a death machine in this series. Great book for zombie fans too. Ray Porter is a fantastic narrator as well, he's one of those narrators who truly embodies the characters.

This got me interested in zombie stories again.

Any additional comments?

First off, Ray Porter you rock as a narrator. Seriously one of my favorite to listen to I can not imagine anyone else narrating Joe voice.

As someone else mentioned this book falls more into a Military/Horror area in my opinion. What Maberry did with this book to really sell me on it was he took something as cliche as the "zombie apocalypse" took modern day science and showed how, hypothetically it could be created in a lab today. From there the action ratchets up to 10 and the rest of the story is about following Ledger and his team work to prevent this from happening.

Soooo how is this different, still seems cliche right? Well a good chunk of this story is spent on the damage that Ledger and his team suffer because of there job. I am not talking about cuts or bullet wounds I am talking about honest to god emotional/mental trauma and Maberry weaves these aspects into the story seamlessly as to drive the empathy hammer home for the characters you are following. That right there made it possible for me to really get into the characters of this story and enjoy this fast paced thriller.

The story in of itself is simple in nature when compared to other books. But I swear I can continuously come back to this book for a good reliable listen. Book 2: The Dragon Factory is by far my favorite out of all the books in this series.

Lots of fun

Where does Patient Zero rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I'd never heard of the series or author before I stumbled across this book, and I really enjoyed it. Fast paced, and interesting, it wasn't really what I was expecting. I thought this would be a much more supernatural read, which I enjoy, but was very pleasantly surprised. I really enjoyed Joe, and immediately picked up the other books in the series as well!