Jonathan Maberry - Patient Zero: A Joe Ledger Novel

Praise for Patient Zero

Terrifyingly terrific!

Sherrilyn Kenyon, #1 New York Times
bestselling author of the Dark-Hunter series

A fast-paced, creepy thriller prickly as a hospital needle This guy is good.

Joe R. Lansdale, author of Lost Echoes

Maberry has outdone himself with a deliciously diabolical plot and bone-chilling scenarios.

L. A. Banks, New York Times bestselling
author of the Vampire Huntress Legends series

A first-rate thriller with a bioterror angle that is as horrific as it is plausible Joe Ledger rules.

Douglas Preston, coauthor of The Wheel of Darkness
and The Book of the Dead

Jonathan Maberry deserves to take his place among the best suspense writers of recent years.

John Connolly, author of
The Reapers and The Killing Kind

His writing is powerful enough to sing with poetry while simultaneously scaring the hell out of you.

Tess Gerritsen,
author of The Keepsake and The Bone Garden

It is almost impossible to find a noir-thriller; the two genres are so distinct and separate. Until now. Jonathan Maberry has succeeded in merging the two to such a wondrous extent that we may have to coin neonoir-thriller just to describe it. This book stole a whole evening and most of a night from me, and I was glad of the theft! Patient Zero introduces a cop who is as compelling as any character Ive read in years. If you took the pace of Grisham, the eerie atmospheric style of Peter Straub or Tom Piccirilli, the Wambaugh-type cop who has become a rarity, and the thriller skill of Lee Child, youd have the best of all worlds. Youd in fact have Jonathan Maberrys new novel. This is the new voice of the thriller!

Ken Bruen, author of Cross and Priest

This is the coolest book Ive read since discovering Covert-One. With this new series, Jonathan Maberry becomes my generations Robert Ludlum. Joe Ledger is a hero for the new millenniumtough as nails, sharp as a whip, and up for anything. Hes a man who puts honor before his own self-preservation, who rides the edges and isnt afraid to go down fighting. The story is absolutely riveting and the scariest concept to come down the pike in a long while. I want Ledger to fight all my battles. I dare you to put this book down before the endgame plays out. I dare you.

J.T. Ellison, author of

Fair warning: when you start this book, be sure you have budgeted the time to finish it. Its very hard to put this one down. Patient Zero weaves science, police procedure, and modern anti-terror techniques into a unique blend and tops it off with a larger-than-life character who is utterly believable. I couldnt put it down.

Jerry Pournelle

Patient Zero is a feast for thriller lovers! Its a delicious and diabolical stew of genres and traditions. With a pinch of forensic procedural, a dash of hard-boiled noir, a sprinkle of medical thriller, and a tincture of apocalyptic zombie epic, Jonathan Maberry cooks up a succulent meal of mayhem that slyly comments on our paranoid times. The hardshelled hero, Baltimore shamus Joe Ledger, deserves to stand alongside F. Paul Wilsons Repairman Jack in the pantheon of genre icons. Highest recommendation!

Jay Bonansinga, national bestselling
author of Perfect Victim, Shattered, Twisted, and Frozen

Patient Zero is an action-packed novel, filled with unforgettable characters and rapid-fire, spot-on dialogue that makes you eager for more. Within this story, Maberry brings new meaning to the word zombie, ripping it from the pages of folkloric fantasy and shoving it into the realm of horrific plausibility. I defy anyone to put this novel down after the first two pages: it simply cant be done!

Deborah LeBlanc, president of the Horror Writers Association and
author of Water Witch and Morbid Curiosity

Jonathan Maberry has created a new genre. Mixing technology, thrills, chills, and procedural noir, Maberry shows why he is one of the freshest voices in fiction. Every reader will want to ride shotgun on Joe Ledgers adventures.

Scott Nicholson, author of The Skull Ring

Smart, scary, and relentless! Maberrys Patient Zero keeps coming at you with action, suspense, and the kind of detail that makes you believe, Yeah, this could really happen.

D. H. Dublin, author of Freezer Burn and Body Trace

This book KICKS ASS! I read the whole thing with a big crazy grin of pure delight on my face, and I havent stopped smiling yet. Zombies! Terrorists! Mad scientists! Heavy weapons! Stuff blowing up! And in the middle of it all, Joe Ledger, one truly badass action hero for the new millennium. You want to know what this book is? Its pure distilled essence of fun. Take a big ol swallow of it and hang on tight, cause you aint sleeping til its done with you. But you are gonna love the trip.

J. D. Rhoades, author of Safe and Sound and Good Day in Hell

A riveting page-turner. Cool stuff! Hooray for Jonathan Maberry. Please give us more Joe Ledger right now!

Victor Gischler

If Stephen King were to get hold of [Vince Flynns] Mitch Rapp, youd have an idea of what Jonathan Maberry has accomplished with the Department of Military Sciences uberagent Joe Ledger. Patient Zero is a frightening tale that injects a new level of horror into the already terror-filled post-9/11 world. A bioterror weapon that raises the dead? In Maberrys masterful hands, you will believe!

Ken Isaacson, author of Silent Counsel

Fiction

Ghost Road Blues

Dead Mans Song

Bad Moon Rising

Nonfiction

Vampire Universe

The Cryptopedia

Zombie CSU

Jonathan Maberry

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously.

PATIENT ZERO. Copyright 2009 by Jonathan Maberry. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martins Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Book design by Jonathan Bennett

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Maberry, Jonathan.

Patient zero : a Joe Ledger novel / Jonathan Maberry1st ed.

. m.

ISBN-13: 978-0-312-38285-8

ISBN-10: 0-312-38285-5

1. DetectivesMarylandBaltimoreFiction. 2. TerrorismPreventionFiction. 3. BioterrorismFiction. 4. ZombiesFiction. I. Title.

PS3613.A19P38 009

813.6dc22

2008038234

First Edition: March 2009

10

This book is dedicated
to the often unsung
and overlooked heroes
who work in covert operations
and the intelligence communities.

Much of the technical information in this novel is based upon actual science. With very few exceptions, the surveillance equipment, computer systems, and weapons used by the fictional Department of Military Sciences are real, though several of these items are not yet available on the commercial market.

Prion diseases, including fatal familial insomnia, are also real; the parasites and control diseases used by Gen2000, however, are purely fictitious, though inspired by similar pathogens currently present in science.

A great number of people have provided help, advice, and technical information. Any technical errors still remaining are mine. Also, thanks to Michael Sicilia of Homeland Security; the superb team at the Philadelphia Forensic Science Bureau led by Chief Inspector Keith R. Sadler and Captain Daniel Castro; Ken Coluzzi, Chief of Lower Makefield Police Department; Frank Sessa; Dr. Bruno Vincent of the Institut de Pharmacologie Molculaire et Cellulaire; Kenneth Storey, Ph.D., Carleton University; Pawel P. Liberski, M.D., Department of Molecular Pathology and Neuropathology, Medical University of Lodz; and Peter Lukacs, M.D.