The King of Plagues

I generally avoid author’s whose books can substitute for doorstops. I have read one author who I do not avoid his “doorstops.” I have now found author #2; Jonathan Maberry. This man can flat out write! I can’t say enough good things about his Joe Ledger series. Characters I care about. Stories that pull me in and having me trying to figure out things before the protagonist does. These are the kind of books that when I hear that they’re making a movie or tv show from the series I say, “Please, don’t screw it up!” Yes, they are THAT good. I just wish they all came in mass market paperback editions. Great stuff, Maynard!

(Spoilers ahead. Continue at your own peril.) I was wondering how Jonathan Maberry would “up the stakes” from his prior novel. From Sebastian Gault and Toys to the Seven Kings, Joe Ledger has gone against increasingly villainous bad guys. His love, Major Grace Courtland, now dead, the author has introduced another possible love interest, Dr. Circe O’Tree, working for Hugo Vox, daughter of Mr. Church but he was careful to not let things move too quickly.

He’s also coming up with some need Bond-like gadgets like the BAMS (“Bio-Aerosol Mass Spectrometer”). It’s still not the size of a tricorder but it’s getting there.

Another great book in Jonathan Maberry’s Joe Ledger Series. This one is book #3 and I totally enjoyed it. I was not sure if I liked the angel Maberry took at first, but the book won me over about a quarter of the way through it. In this one we see a continued attempt at the war on terrorists from Joe and his DMS team. We get introduced to a couple of new faces in this one, Circe who is a doctor and Ghost who is Joe’s secret agent dog! I loved them both.

You can’t help but like the whole echo team and the DMS. The characters are so alive and so believable. The plot and twists are amazing. I could read the Joe ledger series many times over and never tire of what I was reading. I love the action and excitement that Maberry packs into this installment.

In this one Maberry focused on the 10 plagues of Egypt that can be read about in Exodus. Very interesting plot to the story. And playing the roles of our villains are is a would be Goddess and 7 would be kings, one of them being the King of plagues. Joe and the DMS must stop these new terrorists from wreaking havoc all over the world. A lot of action and excitement in this one and I loved every minute of it.

The characters are at their best I think in this installment. I love them all and it is hard to pick favorites along with Joe, because he will always be my favorite. A lot of new villains to love to hate, along with a couple that we are already familiar with, Gault and Toys.

If you love Jonathan Maberry, then this series is a must read for any fan of his work. I look forward to the next installment, Assassin’s Code

“The King Of Plagues” is Jonathan Maberry’s third Joe Ledger novel and easily the most complete and best of the lot. Joe is called back into action while still grieving the loss of Grace Courtland when the Royal London Hospital is destroyed costing thousands of lives and is soon followed by ohther inexplicable tragedies around the globe. Joe, the enigmatic Mr. Church, and the heretofore unseen, Aunt Sallie, launch into action leading the Department of Military Science (DMS) team against their most formidable foes yet–The Seven Kings.

The Seven Kings led by the mysterious “Goddess” are hellbent on taking control of the financial wealth of the world and they are employing both modern and biochemical weapons to create a modern version of the biblical 10 Plagues of Egypt. Their fiendish plans incorporate psychological torture and coercion of everyday citizens, the creation of mindless obedient soldiers, and the destruction of tens of thousands of lives to create compliant and tractable governments. Old enemies and friends reappear as do new enemies and new friends–the trick is to discern which is which in this new full frontal attack that has spies in every level of power on every continent.

Joe has his own new friend, a beautiful white German Shepard named Ghost that will quickly steal your heart. Joe Ledger really grows in this novel, as a hero, as a person, and as a protagonist; indeed, he becomes a fully fleshed character in “The King Of Plagues” and not just the narrowly defined warrior we are used to. There are deadly assassins to be dealt with, traitors to muck up the pursuit, and even one character who smacks of supernaturalism.

This is indeed a great effort by Maberry for all Joe Ledger fans as well as any fan of full throttled non stop action thrillers. The pacing is breath taking, the mysteries challenging, and the action and thrills are completly satisfying. The characterizations are much more thorough and compelling this time around also. If you are a fan of this genre, do not miss this one.

Rather than, spend time on plot spoilers, or explanations, i will start simply by saying that if you come to the page for this book having not read the previous 2 entries in the series, then click on Patient Zero as your priority purchase- The series definately benefits from being read in order.
If you arrive here an established fan of the series, then I am delighted to report all is well in the World of the DMS – in the sense that this is another rip-roaring page turner of plausible bio-terrorism.

Mr Maberry has made some refinements to the ingredients that go into this novel – gone are the clunky psychological second guessings of the team Psychologist Dr Sanchez, and instead we find Joe Ledger more attuned to the stresses of his bizarre and dangerous life.

The emphasis on the villainy has also changed slightly – where in the previous 2 entries, the biochemistry has been fetishised and revelled in by the ‘bad guys’, here, it is merely a tool, and the main focus of the story shifts to the plausability of secret societies, and their potential influence on world events.

This shift of focus requires the DMS to approach their foes in a different way, which is good, because without fresh challenges, as enjoyable as the premise is, the series could run the risk of becoming formulaic.

Another interesting twist is the suggestion of an unexplainable, genuinely supernatural character in the book, who may return in the future to give another spin on the encounters of the DMS- after all, how does military science counter that which confounds the laws of science?

Maberry’s prose and charecterisation are as strong as ever, but his real strength remains the wonderful ability to tell disparate elements of the story, dancing between timelines, drawing the threads together as the book reaches its finale and the timelines and characters converge. It is a very clever piece of storytelling, as every chapter finishes on a cliffhanger of its own, and the big picture of the story becomes clear to the reader in the same timeframe as Joe Ledger and the team put the pieces together for themselves.

This entry in the series strengthens its position as one of the best and most exciting in modern fiction. Recommended without reserve.

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