In “The End of Everything” we see things through the eyes of Lizzie Hood, who serves as a first person narrator. When we meet Lizzie she’s 13 and growing up in the suburban midwest of the 1980s. Her home life is not the best. Her mother is still struggling to find happiness in the wake of a divorce, and her older brother is distant and aloof. So Lizzie spends most of her time next door with her best friend Evie Verver and her family. Evie and Lizzie are so close that they are practically sisters, but Evie’s biological sister the beautiful and tough Dusty also plays a part in their lives. The family member that looms largest though in Lizzie and Evie’s life is Evie’s father, Mister Verver, who even though she never directly admits it to us readers Lizzie has started to fall in love with.

One summer right before she graduates 8^th grade Lizzie’s world is shattered when Evie disappears on her. Having been one of the last people to see her friend Lizzie feels personally responsible and wracks her brain for clues to where Evie may have gone. What she uncovers is the strangeness and dark side to her neighborhood and the Verver household. As the days goes on and Evie does not reemerge Lizzie grows desperate and begins to carry our her own investigation into what happened to her friend based on the secrets that best friends tell each other.

Lizzie’s desperate quest and how it forces her to reevaluate her life and her surroundings is what makes “The End of Everything” so readable and so haunting. It gives the story a sense of urgency and dread. The mystery of what happened to Evie is of course intriguing because you like the characters, but throughout the book there’s a palpable feel of shocking and forbidden knowledge lurking just outside the reader and Lizzie’s grasp. You desperately want to know that secret, but the way Abbott fires your imagination you’re not sure you want to know. So in a sense “The End of Everything isn’t just a good crime novel, it’s also a really good horror novel in a way.

What makes “The End of Everything” even better is Lizzie and Abbott’s vibrant description of everything. Lizzie’s entire world is brought to life in crisp colors, textures and feelings. So it’s even more effective when you start to get the sense that something is rotten in it. Abbott blends that with a fairly quick pace which gives the “The End of Everything” an almost ethereal feel. It’s like a beautiful and frightening fever dream.

I like to keep my reviews spoiler free so all I’ll say about the end of the book is that it offers up a conclusion that is satisfying, realistic, and haunting. So all in all “The End of Everything” was a mesmerizing and compelling novel that shined a light into some of the twisted, uncomfortable feelings, corruption, and darkness that grows and thrives in the dark places of suburban communities.

Like “Money Shot,” “Choke Hold” is also a first person narrative from Angel Dare’s point of view.. Angel is a great character with a very interesting perspective. She’s also a very human character and easy to identify with. If “Choke Hold” is your first time meeting Angel you’ll be rooting for her in just a couple of pages, and if you read “Money Shot” you know what I mean and will be happy to reunite with the character in this novel.

In “Choke Hold” Angel is still the same character we know and love. She still has her sense of humor and interesting perspective from her former profession, but she’s quite haunted by what she sacrificed to get her revenge in the previous novel. She’s mourning what she lost of herself.

When the novel begins she’s doing that mourning incognito in a diner in Arizona. The reasons aren’t quite clear at first, but that’s okay because Angel doesn’t have time to explain herself. She’s caught off guard by a former boyfriend who recognizes her. Minutes later that boyfriend is gunned down and Angel is escaping a firefight with the son her lover never knew he had. With his dying breath Angel’s former lover asks her to look after his son.

So Angel has a purpose once again and she sets out fulfill it. Fulfilling that purpose means getting her ex-lover’s son, Cody, to Las Vegas where he has a shot at a television show that would launch his career in the world of Mixed Martial Arts. To get him there Angel will have to navigate a world of underground fighting run by a drug dealing mobster while trying to steer clear of the Croatian gangsters who are hunting her because of what she did in “Money Shot.”

One of the best things about journeying with Angel through this world is the characters she meets. Faust populates “Choke Hold” with an eclectic cast of extremely interesting characters. There are memorable minor characters like a forger that is trying to become a painter and major ones like my favorite supporting character in the book Hank “The Hammer” Hammond. Hank is Cody’s teacher and an expert fighter who’s taken one too many head shots. He’s a larger than life character who made a lot of bad choices in his past, but is trying hard to be good and noble. Faust does an amazing job with the character. In every scene he’s in you get a sense of what kind of life he’s lead and his inherent nobility is pretty moving.

Faust also does a great job pacing the action in “Choke Hold.” The book opens with a burst of violence and you’re off running with the characters. Things slow down occasionally to let you catch your breath and offer up compelling character or plot details, but then you’re off and running again. The action scenes in Las Vegas are especially compelling as Angel, Cody, and Hank desperately try to escape the many enemies that are out for their blood.

Then comes the ending. Again, I don’t like to give spoilers, so all I’ll say is it’s a bloody, haunting, and powerful one. The last chapter especially left me pretty mesmerized.

So “Choke Hold” was a hell of a read. I thought Faust set the bar pretty high with “Money Shot,” but “Choke Hold” is even better. It definitely left me wanting more. So I eagerly await Faust’s next crime novel.

It’s been awhil since we’ve seen Harry Bosch work a case on his own in the City of Los Angeles. In 2009′s “9 Dragons,” the last pure Bosch novel Harry spent much of the book trying to solve a family crisis in Hong Kong. In 2010′s “The Reversal” Bosch shared the spotlight with half brother Mickey Haller AKA the Lincoln Lawyer. Those were both compelling and exciting novels but I’ve kind of missed getting the chance to see Harry Bosch do what he does best. So it was a lot of fun to be back with Harry on his home turf and seeing him crack cases

In “The Drop” Bosch is actually given two cases. The first one comes to him because of his current assignment as an investigator for the Robbery Homicide’s elite Open-Unsolved Unit, which investigates cold cases. He’s assigned to figure out why the blood of a young boy was found on a victim that was murdered in 1989. Bosch’s second case comes to him from an old enemy that long time readers will remember well, Irvin H Irving. The former Internal Affairs Cop turned City Councilman wants Bosch to investigate the death of his son who fell to his death from a seventh floor hotel room.

The two cases take some powerful and surprising twists and it’s a lot of fun to watch Bosch handle them. Connelly once again proves he’s a master at telling these kinds of stories. The closer Bosch gets to the truth on each of his cases the harder it is to put the book down. The cases are connected thematically, but I can’t say how for fear of spoilers. Some readers may make the frustrating mistake of wanting to find larger connections between them though. I did that at first, but once I sat back and let them be what they were I enjoyed the novel even more.

As I mentioned in the beginning, there seems to be two types of classic Harry Bosch stories the ones dealing with some kind of corruption and the ones wear he confronts evil incarnate. In “The Drop” you get a story that combines both of these tales together and it’s done by a writer who is older, wiser, and better and knows how to spin these classic tales in interesting ways. So the plot, tone, and pacing of “The Drop” are all extremely well done .

The other element that makes “The Drop” so entertaining is of course the characters. Fans get to see all of Harry’s idiosyncrasies on display in “The Drop” and get to be reminded of why we love the character so much. We also get to see Harry spend a lot of time in a new and interesting role, that of Father. “Nine Dragons” brought Harry’s teenage daughter, Maddy, back into his life in a big way, but “The Drop” is the first chance you get to see a lot of that relationship.

It’s a pretty cool and loving relationship too. And Kudos to Connelly for not making Maddy your typical irritating teenager who does stupid stuff and is constantly bickering with her father. In “The Drop” you get to see Maddy is very close to her father and respects him. You also get to see that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, Maddy appears to be a very canny detective for her age and her insight into human behavior often surprises her father.

Connelly also uses “The Drop” to introduce a new character into Bosch’s life Doctor Hannah Stone, a psychiatrist who works to counsel and try to redeem convicted sex offenders. Stone’s occupation challenges some of Bosch’s beliefs about crime and criminals, but he can’t help but be drawn to her. She makes for an interesting love interest for the character and I’m curious to see what else Connelly does with their relationship in future books.

Rounding out the memorable cast of “The Drop” are a couple more compelling and eclectic characters. Connelly spends a lot of time developing Bosch’s relationship with his partner Detective David Chu. The scenes with the two of them felt very real and it was interesting to see the dynamic they have together. The other fascinating character we spend very little time with, but the time you do spend is scary as hell. Near the end of the book readers meet a violent, despicable, and remorseless killer. The character is evil incarnate, but he’s not a cartoon character. His actions and dialogue ring true. That can be hard to do, but I think Connelly pulls it off chillingly well.

Finally, the title “The Drop” refers to the LAPD’s Deferred Retirement Option Plan, which means Bosch is nearing the end of his career. So it’s possible that “The Drop” may be one of the last Harry Bosch books. If that is the case I’ll miss the character, but I’m also excited about that idea. With “The Drop” it feels like Connelly is setting the stage for the final act in one of the greatest police procedural sagas ever. There are several elements of the story that could easily carry over into the next book and I can’t wait to see what happens next. The fact that I can still say that after reading 17 Bosch novels speaks volumes about Connelly’s ability as a writer.

When “Out There Bad” begins Moses is a changed man because of his experiences in the first novel. He’s no longer drinking or suicidal. That doesn’t mean he’s not haunted by demons though. In “Out There Bad” Moses is wrestling with an invisible monster we all struggle with, loneliness and the desire to be love. He wants to be a better man and he desperately wants to find someone to make him believe that he can become one. He believes he finds such a person when he encounters a Russian stripper who captures his heart and his imagination. Unfortunately for Moses the stripper has been enslaved by ruthless Russian mobsters.

Moses doesn’t let that stop him though. When it comes to love and relationships he’s “rescuer” type and he’s just as ruthless. I’m a rescuer type as well. So I was hooked. I knew Moses was about to get into a heap of trouble and his temper and penchant for violence was about explode. I was worried about the guy, but I rooted him on and cheered as he went to war.

So Moses enlists the aid of his friend, the Armenian bad-ass Gregor, and goes to war with an arm of the Russian mob. An early victory though turns into a crusade against one of today’s most despicable and least talked about crimes, human trafficking. Stallings tackles the problem in a realistic, powerful, and unflinching way. In that way “Out There Bad” reminded me of some of the best novels by Andrew Vacchs.

Stallings should also be applauded for incorporating a lot of new elements into “Out There Bad” and handling all them extremely well. In “Beautiful, Naked, and Dead” the author took you all over California and Vegas. In “Out There Bad” you begin things in Moses’ rough and tumble corner of Los Angeles, but Stallings expands the scope and scale of things by making them international. The book features chilling and realistic feeling depictions of Russia and Mexico as well.

The writer also does some great new work with point of view. All of “Beautiful, Naked and Dead” is told from Moses’ point of view. The bulk of “Out There Bad” is still told from Moses’ point of view, but Stallings also works in other compelling perspectives as well like that of a scared thirteen year old Russian girl and a vicious razor wielding assassin out to snuff the life of anyone who profits from the sexual exploitation of women.

Stallings takes all those elements and blends them together to serve up a rip roaring, powerful, bloody, and haunting sophomore crime novel. It’s also wrapped up in a great way where every character pays the price for their actions. Some series writers would hit the reset button at the end of their second novel, but Stallings isn’t interested in going back to the status quo and I’m glad. It made his second novel better than his stellar debut novel. I can’t wait to see where he takes Moses McGuire next.

Ok, everybody ready? Just in case one last big SPOILER WARNING!!!!!!

All right then, away we go! When we last left ex-Philadelphia Police consultant and tough guy extraordinaire Charlie Hardie he had saved the host of an “America’s Most Wanted” style program from a group of incredibly stealthy assassins dubbed the “Accident People” for their knack for making their crimes looks like accidents. As it turns out though the “Accident People” are just foot soldiers for a large and very powerful organization, an organization that’s not very happy with Charlie Hardie.

“Fun & Games” ends with Hardie falling into this organization’s custody and in “Hell & Gone” they enact their vengeance upon Hardie by sending him to a strange, underground, ultra secure prison. Complicating things even further is the fact that upon his arrival at the prison Hardie discovers that he’s the facility’s new warden and if anybody escapes from the prison on his watch everyone inside will die.

So there’s a lot of stuff going on in “Hell & Gone” and all of it is pretty awesome. One of the most interesting things is the very nature of the prison itself is a mystery. Its true nature is revealed near the end of the novel and the revelation is a fun mix of science fiction, classic prison movie elements, conspiracy stories, and academia.

Another great thing is that Swierczynski uses the set up of the prison to reveal even more about his protagonist. We got to know and root for Charlie in “Fun & Games” and in “Hell & Gone” we get to know even more about his past and what makes him tick. We get to see how he holds up under a great amount of physical and mental oppression and best of all we get to see him fight back. That’s because Swierczynski know all the best prison stories involve jail breaks.

You also get to learn a lot more about another character who only played a minor role in “Fun & Games,”  Hardie’s FBI contact  Special Agent Deke Clark. Clark spends much of “Hell & Gone” searching for Hardie and dealing with the enigmatic and powerful forces behind his disappearance. Clark’s reactions are believable and he’s a very likeable character that you enjoy spending time with.

The supporting cast of “Hell & Gone” is also populated by several interesting new characters especially the inmates and guards of the prison Hardie is trapped in. All of them have intricate and interesting back stories that are revealed as the novel unfolds. I can’t confirm this but based on the character’s names and some of their stories it feels like Swierczynski includes some fun homages and Easter eggs to his fellow crime writers and some of their characters.

So reading “Hell & Gone” was a lot of fun. The only thing that seemed out of place was an opening scene that didn’t look it had any relevance to the larger plot, but towards the end of the novel Swierczynski comes back to it and weaves that scene into his larger story in a very compelling way.

In Summary “Hell & Gone” is the best kind of sequel, one that’s even better than the first chapter in the story. It’s pacing, action, and characters were all great.  As a long time fan of Swierczynski’s work I think it’s his best novel to date.

So the bar is set pretty high for the third chapter in the Charlie Hardie trilogy, “Point and Shoot,” which arrives in March. Swierczynski gives the novel a hell of a set up with the final pages of “Hell & Gone” and even if it’s only half as good the previous novel’s it’s bound to be a lot of fun.

Then in his 2009 novel “The Lovers” readers got to know a lot more about Parker’s past and it felt like Connolly was ready to plunge into the deep end of the supernatural pool. The novel hinted that some very powerful people were interested in using Parker to fight some very evil things. Since that novel though there hasn’t been much of a follow up. The supernatural still figures into Parker’s cases, but it’s almost like Connolly’s 2010 Parker novel “The Whisperers” and his most recent one “The Burning Soul” are stand alone cases while readers wait for the next big event to happen in Charlie Parker’s life. That doesn’t mean those novels are bad, in fact “The Burning Soul” was quite entertaining. It just makes them a little frustrating.

In “The Burning Soul” a teenage girl is abducted in the small town of Pastor’s Bay. Parker is drawn into the investigation when he agrees to help find out who is blackmailing and trying to frame Randall Haight for the crime. Haight has been targeted because when he was a teenager he and friend murdered a child. He did his time and thanks to the machinations of a crusading judge he even got a new identity upon his release

Parker is a great character so it’s always cool to be seeing things through his eyes especially in the early stages of his investigation when both he and you the reader are getting to know the town of Pastor’s Bay. Randall Haight and several other of its citizens are all colorful and eclectic characters.

We’re also treated to some creepy supernatural scenes. At the very beginning you get the feeling that Parker is being watched by some animals that are in the service to something smarter and more sinister. There are also places where “The Burning Soul” becomes a pretty chilling ghost story.

Things slow down though in the early stages when Connolly moves the action away from Pastor’s Bay and to the mean streets of Boston. Here he focuses on some low level mobsters whose connections to the larger story are not readily apparent. Connolly valiantly tries to make these characters interesting, but the more time we spend with them the more things slow down. Mid way through the book their connection to things become apparent and they disappear only to show up again at the book’s ending. So ultimately they feel a bit extraneous.

Also these two mobsters take away time from other characters like Charlie Parker’s friends Angel, the Hispanic thief and his lover Louis, an African American assassin. Anyone whose read Connolly’s work knows you don’t do that. Angel and Louis are two of the best supporting characters in crime fiction. They still play a role in the “Burning Soul,” but not as big as fans might be used to.

About halfway through “The Burning Soul” heats up and rockets towards a pretty exciting conclusion. We follow Parker’s investigation into who Randall Haight really is and what happened to the missing girl and uncover some pretty shocking and compelling clues. Best of all the last couple lines of the book seem to suggest that Parker’s actions will be reported to a shadowy, nefarious adversary.

So ultimately “The Burning Soul” was not the book I wanted it to be. That doesn’t mean it was a bad one though. It was highly entertaining in parts, had a pretty satisfying climax, and had an ending that could lead to the Parker book I’ve been wanting for several years

The protagonist of the novel is a big man named Moses McGuire. He’s extremely good in a fight, but that’s because he’s been fighting his entire life. When we first meet him the mental scars from all that fighting are starting to be too much and he’s considering suicide. A panicked phone call from his one and only friend makes him reconsider. He then heads to the strip club where he works as a bouncer to try and help his friend. A chance encounter with some vicious thugs though causes him to miss the meeting with his friend and when he goes to find her he discovers she’s been horribly murdered.

That death triggers something in Moses. It sends him racing across California and Nevada in a desperate quest to find and destroy his friend’s killers. During his search he uncovers a web of violence connecting the mob, internet porn, and federal agents. As we the readers accompany Moses we uncover what makes him tick and why he is the man he is.

In Moses, Stalling has a deeply flawed and fascinating hero. He’s haunted by a life time of violence. It’s made him a suicidal, alcoholic who consumes speed to stay awake on long journeys. He’s a deeply loyal guy though who’s true to his word and guided by righteous fury. As a reader you root for Moses in his quest to slay both the bad guys and his personal demons.

Along the way you also meet a variety of interesting supporting characters like the strippers that dance at the club where Moses works. Piper was my favorite; a fierce red head who tries to be a friend to Moses. Other interesting supporting players include a laconic street thug named Gregor and Leo, a veteran soldier for the Chicago mob.

Moses’ interactions with these and various other characters are often funny, tragic, powerful, or exciting depending on the nature of the scene. Stallings shifts between these moods expertly and paces his novel just right. And like the best crime fiction you get an ending that make you feel that you really took a long and meaningful journey with a character. I look forward to taking more journey’s with Moses McGuire too. I recently picked up Stallings’s second Moses McGuire novel, “Out There Bad” and look forward to reading it.

One of the reasons “Fun and Games” is so entertaining is Swierczynski’s protagonist, ex cop Charlie Hardie. Hardie is a big, gruff, super tough, S.O.B. He definitely feels like a character you would see in a high octane, Hollywood action thriller, but he also has substance. He’s not the one-liner spewing death machine style character that some one like Schwarzenagger used to play. Hardie has more in common with the damaged and haunted heroes that populate the films of screen writer Shane Black. So yes, Hardie is a bad ass, but he’s also very human. He wrestles with some powerful personal demons and in between some fantastic action scenes, and some hilarious mishaps you get to learn more about the things plaguing Hardy. That classic combination of toughness and vulnerability makes Hardie a very compelling hero.

When “Fun and Games” begins Hardie is making a living as a house sitter. His latest job takes him to a lavish home in Los Angeles’ Hollywood Hills. It’s there where he runs into an actress that’s been marked for death by a very special group of assassins. What follows is an action packed cat and mouse game as Hardie and the actress Lane Madden try to stay one step ahead of the cunning and powerful cabal of killers targeting them.

The assassins after Hardie and Madden are a special group called “The Accident People” who specialize in making their murders look like accidents. They employ and operate a lot of techniques from the movie business so they’re just one of the many ways in which Swierczynski makes good use of his setting. The other is the vibrant way he describes all the real world LA locales. Swierczynski is a resident of Philadelphia but it’s clear he loves Los Angeles. I got some sense of that in his fantastic comic book one-shot ” Immortal Iron Fist: Orson Randall and the Death Queen of California,”which took place during Hollywood’s Golden Age, but here Swierczynski really shows off his appreciation for the history, locales, and overall strangeness of L.A. The sense of place and ties to the movie industry reminded me of one of my favorite Robert Altman films, “The Player.”

So overall, “Fun and Games” lives up to it’s title. Imagine if Shane Black and Robert Altman did their take on “The Parallax View” and set it in Los Angeles. That’s how cool and exciting “Fun and Games” is . Best of all it’s the first in a trilogy. I can’t wait to read the second Charlie Hardie novel, “Hell and Gone,” which is in stores at the end of this month.

Waggoner’s protagonist is a fairly likeable guy named Matt Richter, a former cop from Cleveland. One night Matt and his partner followed a strange killer through a mysterious portal and became trapped in the other dimensional city of Nekropolis. In their final confrontation with the killer, Matt’s partner was murdered and accident happened that transformed him into an intelligent zombie. He decided to use his skills to become a sort of unofficial P.I. Instead of doing jobs. He does “favors” His cunning mind, undead physical form, and the numerous mystical tools he keeps in the pockets of his trench coat make him pretty good at his job. Matt’s first two traits are quite interesting. The second one though just felt a little too convenient and super hero like. Matt’s trenchcoat is pretty much just like Batman’s utility belt.

Matt’s abilities and tools help him with his job, but what really makes him an interesting character is his genuine desire to do good. In spite of all he’s seen in the monstrous city of “Nekropolis” he’s not a cynical character. He doesn’t believe what he’s doing is futile and continues to try regardless of the odds. That makes him a refreshing and interesting character. He broods a little bit, but doesn’t really wine or complain.

In “Nekropolis” Matt is approached by Devona, the daughter of the city’s vampire overlord. She needs him to do the favor of finding a stolen mystical artifact before her temperamental father finds out. Matt takes the case and he Devona’s investigation takes them across the entire city of Nekropolis, which is a pretty interesting town.

Imagine one city that’s a combination of the different horror theme realms of Ravenloft from “Dungeons and Dragons,” Halloweentown from the “Nightmare Before Christmas,” and the crazy afterlife of “Beetlejuice.” That’s Nekropolis. It’s populated by horrific technology that’s a mirror reflection of our own. It is also home to monsters, demons, magicians, and all around strange characters. The city itself is broken down into boroughs each controlled by a particularly powerful dark lord. For example, a shapeshifting darklord rules over a borough populated by were beasts, and a vampirc dark lord rules a neighborhood of blood suckers. These dark lords commit all sorts of intrigues against each other, but every year the must cooperate in a ceremony that keeps the city from being destroyed.

So the setting of “Nekropolis” was pretty damn interesting, but for some reason the book just didn’t click with me. I don’t know if the setting was too weird or alien, the pacing was off or if the book just wasn’t what I wanted it to be. There were times when I felt my patience and attention wearing thin.

I stuck with “Nekropolis” though and I’m glad I did. By the end of the book Waggoner ultimately won me back over. What did it were his two main characters of Matt and Devona. In many thrillers with a male and female character they often fall in love and fall in bed together. It’s usually a very contrived plot development. In “Nekropolis” Matt and Devona do develop feelings for each other, but in a unique and organic way. I bought it. It felt sweet and true, and it kept me reading.

So I found “Nekropolis” to be a bumpy, but ultimately satisfying journey. It had a solid and likeable main character who developed a relationship with another character that felt interesting, poignant, and very real. So because of that I’m definitely interested in seeing what Waggoner does with his second Matt Richter novel, “Dead Streets.”

In his work on comics like “Black Panther” and the one-shot “Punisher MAX: Naked Kill” Maberry showed he could write tough and charismatic men and women. From there I went on to try his first novels, the “Pine Deep” horror trilogy. In that series of novels he showed he could write tough but believable characters fighting back against supernatural evil. It was an epic story for me it was almost a modern day horrific “Lord of the Rings.” So I was very curious to try Maberry’s latest series of prose novels starring Joe Ledger, an ex-soldier turned cop who gets recruited to fight techno terror. I just finished the first novel “Patient Zero,” and I’m happy to say I enjoyed it. It read like a mash up of the best elements of the TV series “24” and the video game series “Resident Evil.”

“Patient Zero” begins with Ledger, in his final days as a cop, participating in a raid in a warehouse suspected of terrorist activity. He displays courage, cunning, and incredible combat skills. Several days later a shadowy government agency called the Department of Military Sciences picks up Joe and puts him in the same room as one of the terrorists from the warehouse raid. The problem is though that Joe killed that terrorist during the raid. The terrorist has now risen from the dead as a zombie thanks to a mysterious plague.

The head of the DMS, the enigmatic Mr. Church, offers Joe a position with the agency and after a moment of reluctance he accepts. The hunt then begins for the source of the plague and the terrorists behind it before they release it and destroy society. It’s a fun and exciting story that’s incredibly well paced and full of well choreographed action scenes. Admittedly in the early part of the book there were some slow scenes where Maberry spent a little too much time focusing on villains instead of his more interesting characters like Ledger, Mr. Church, and the soldiers that make up Ledger’s commando force, Echo Team.

In Ledger, Maberry has a particularly compelling protagonist. He’s extremely capable and dangerous soldier, but he’s still human. At certain points of the story Ledger’s moral cop persona bumps up against into his take no prisoners soldier persona. Plus he’s a guy who feels. Early on we learn a horrible tragedy happened to him when he was young. Plus at different points in the story Ledger comes face to face with some pretty horrific stuff. In the end he weathers it and because it’s the first book in the series you know he’ll be back for more. There is a sense though that Ledger can only keep up these adventures for so long; that sooner or later the horror may even be too much for him. You know until that point though he’ll keep sticking his neck out and that vulnerability and sense of selflessness makes him a pretty compelling hero.

Maberry also surrounds Ledger with an interesting cast of allies. I’ve already mentioned Mister Church and the soldiers of Echo Team. There’s also Doctor Rudy Sanchez, Joe’s best friend and psychiatrist. Rudy also get’s dragged into the shadowy world of the DMS. He may have not be a soldier but Rudy proves to be just as effective and capable character as Joe. At one point he even stands his ground and protects a group of children from a zombie terrorist.

I mentioned that early on the passages with the villains tended to drag a little but but as the book picked up the villains became more interesting. The main villains of the story were violent Muslim fanatics who came up with a plague that turns people into zombies, but they weren’t the only villains of the book. I liked that. In fact the terrorists scheme is made possible by a greedy corporate CEO who wants to exploit the zombie plague to make a profit. It made things feel complex and interesting.

So “Patient Zero” was packed with fun characters and an exciting story that blended moments of zombie horror with exciting action scenes. The hand to hand combat scenes were particularly compelling. Maberry is an experienced martial artist and you can tell from his his hand to hand fights. The way he describes them feel authentic and energy charged.

When you pack all those elements together you get a fun and very cool story. So I loved “Patient Zero” and look forward to Joe Ledger and Echo Team’s next clash with techno terrorists and monster makers