Jonathan Maberry, known for his supernatural thrillers, launched his latest series with the release of Patient Zero. The new series focuses on Joe Ledger, who has recently become the head of the Department of Military Sciences.
Ledger begins the series as a highly-skilled Baltimore detective. He's smart, and is known as one of the most skilled men in his department. Perhaps this is what drew the attention of the government, who has been secretly recruiting him.
He's soon called on to lead a top-secret military group that is being created. This group, known as the Department of Military Sciences, handles the tasks that the Department of Homeland Security cannot. They can't kill the same terrorist twice in one week, but that's just one of the impossible tasks that Ledger and his crew find themselves performing in Patient Zero.
Ledger's first mission brings him face-to-face with the zombies that Maberry's novels are known for. Unlike many other zombie stories, however, Patient Zero offers a unique twist in that the protagonist of Patient Zero isn't fighting zombies. Instead, Ledger is charged with stopping a terrorist group that is threatening to use a bio-weapon which turns people into zombies.
Maberry is an author and writing instructor. He has published more than a dozen nonfiction books, as well as six novels and two plays. His best known works are the Ghost Road Blues books. This trilogy landed on the New York Times bestseller list and won several awards.
""Patient Zero" has it all: love, drama, action, and of course, zombies. Jonathan Maberry expertly composes a unique spin on the zombie story that makes the novel so plausible its readers will set the book down, check over each shoulder and wonder how long they still have. Maberry's structure for this book breaks from traditional standards in that he is not afraid to use short chapters. Chapter One is two sentences in length. In just over four hundred pages, the novel contains 125 chapters of government conspiracy, international espionage, and gut-wrenching zombie slaying action. Maberry teaches me, as a writer, to forget any fear and break from the norm if it serves a purpose. In this book, the shorter chapters serve to maintain the reader's interest and set a thrill ride pace."
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John (5 out of 5 stars)