Patient Zero: A Joe Ledger Novel

My best friend recently lent me Patient Zero: A Joe Ledger Novel. In my search for good zombie books, I had seen it a few times, but never picked it up for one reason or another, but after it was handed to me, and I was looking for my next zombie book to read, I picked it up. My friend, although he said it was good, warned me that it did take a little getting into and had its slow moments. Of course, I am thinking, this is a zombie book…how many slow moments can it have.

The story takes place in Maryland, and Joe Ledger, our star, hero and savior is on leave “suspension” from the MDPD. He gets kidnapped by these secret government officials and taken to a top über secrete military recruitment facility where after taking on a zombiefied guy of a man he had believed he had shot and killed, he is recruited by a mysterious man and leader of the Department of Military Scientist (DMS) Mr. Church. The zombie virus has actually been developed by a terrorist organization, who want to bring death to America…in a literal way.

Joe cautiously signs on with the DMS and becomes the leader of Team Echo, which consists of guys from all over military and government organizations (it reminded me a little of the “Men in Black, Will Smith would have been Joe, and these guys would have been the rest of the men in the room applying to the MIB).  His team consisted of Top, Skip, Ollie, and Rabbit. Team Echo is not the only team, Grace Courtland, who has been with the DMS for a while, is another of the team leaders, and although she was wary of Joe at first learns to respect him and trust him in no time.   

One thing that I found really funny was the Doctor. Dr Hu. yes that is right. Doctor Who!! He was the only one yelling Zombie from the beginning, there always is one…

Sabastian Gault, a pharmaceutical zillionaire, in order to earn even more money (greedy prat) decides to work with terrorists are die hard Muslims who truly hate America and her corrupt ways. He joins up with El Mujahid and his beautiful and sexually alluring, scientific savant wife Amirah to develop a virus that will spread across the world giving his pharmaceutical companies the chance to make billions. Of course, you can’t trust terrorist and Amirah seduces Gault while her husband plots a way to bring down America. Gault thinks he has Amirah and El Mujahid under control and when he tells them that the Zombie virus only needs to be at a level 3, Amirah continues to work undeterred until she reaches and surpasses  level 10 for her husband to destroy America with. Level 10 being that no longer is the virus just passed through a bit, but can contaminate the air and bring a city to its knees within hours.

And it is the DMS jobs to find out about the plot, and stop it before it is to late, and the 4^th of July is just days away!

As I mentioned originally this book was a little slow to get into and it took me longer to read then a normal zombie book (weeks longer). I actually put this book down a few times and even re-read Broken Angel by Richard K Morgan in-between (that is an awesome book by the way). But once I start a book, I need to finish it; at least it was not as bad as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies…that was just horrible. It was not the best zombie book I had ever read, but it did have a lot of twists and turns. Although I would never recommend anyone to go buy it, if you have a few days and you will be down by the pool enjoying the summer sun and a friend has it…pick it up. It is not bad and you may enjoy it.

Although I did not love this book, I will try another Joe Ledger Novel… you never know.