It was the last thing he wanted, but Joe Ledger is back… Saturday 09:11 Hours: a blast rocks a London Hospital. Thousands are dead or injured… 10:09 Hours: Joe Ledger arrives on the scene to investigate. I knew going into this review that I was in for a compelling read. The last Joe Ledger novel, The Dragon Factory, ended with an event that was guaranteed to have repercussions in the series going forward and I was curious where the story would go. The members of the Department of Military Sciences (DMS) have suffered a loss and as this third novel begins Joe is on leave in the UK and facing an uncertain future.  When an explosion destroys a London hospital Joe is drawn back into the murky world of counter terrorism and global conspiracies. A new group, called The Seven Kings, are on the rise and it is up to the DMS to try and stop them. Using the ten plagues of Egypt as their template The Kings are trying to generate as much chaos throughout the world as is possible. They are wealthy and powerful group, having near limitless resources. The DMS are finally up against a foe that can match…

Time to sneak in just one more review before Zombie Appreciation Month begins. After reading Patient Zero I was very keen to read more of Jonathan Maberry’s work. I really liked his idea of terrorists creating a pathogen that reanimates the dead and using them as a bio-weapon. Patient Zero whips along at a breakneck pace and I found the writing superb. In its sequel, The Dragon Factory, Joe Ledger and Echo team are back. However, no zombies this time out. Instead, the team are in a race against time to stop a maniacal billionaire geneticist who has plans to reinvent the human race. He has put together a globe spanning scheme called the Extinction Wave that targets only certain genetic groups. When the story begins, none of Department of Military Science are aware of what’s going on. For a sizeable chunk of the novel they are largely ignorant of the scale of the threat they are facing. The characters were left fumbling around in the dark, and playing catch up all the way through, which adds some additional tension for the reader. The billionaire, Cyrus Jakoby, makes a compelling villain. He is entirely single minded and the absolute embodiment…

“When you have to kill the same terrorist twice in one week, then there’s either something wrong with your skills or something wrong with your world. And there’s nothing wrong with my skills.” I have a confession to make. I’m thoroughly unsettled by zombies. It doesn’t matter if they are the old style slowly shuffling undead or fast moving rage fuelled beasts made popular over the last couple of years. The whole concept leaves an unpleasant sensation in the pit of my stomach. I think that it’s something to do with the thought that they were once alive. They were just like you or I. Now they are nothing –  just an empty husk with the singular purpose of destruction. In an effort to face my fears I have started reading quite a lot of zombie fiction. Ironically, this constant observation of all things zombie has made me become slightly obsessive about them. Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry has an interesting take on the zombie mythos. There are no supernatural elements at work here. These zombies are the product of scientific research. The main crux of the novel is that terrorists have developed a virus that kills swiftly and then…