Review: Material Witness by Jonathan Maberry

 

 As I count the days to the release of the next Joe Ledger book:  

  

I was excited to get the opportunity to read this free short story. This story takes place after the events of Patient Zero. Joe's team now consists of himself and two others top soldiers. Joe is called into his bosses office to hear a recorded call. The call is from an author in witness protection. Simon Burke is dangerous. A thriller writer he has stumbled into a series of true government secrets and needs to be heavily guarded. In the call he is screaming in distress. Ledger's team is sent to investigate and find themselves in Pine Deep a town in Pennsylvania touted as "America's Haunted Holiday Land". Of course Simon is no where to be found but he's been quite busy: auctioning off his secrets to several bad men from some dangerous countries all converging on Joe and his small team. I really enjoyed this story.

 

 

Maberry is a master at military tactics and fighting styles. A lot of it is over my head but good writing can have you overlook terms your not familiar with. There is also a supernatural element to this story that was really interesting. Though I was originally attracted to this series because of rave reviews and zombie like villains, Joe's adventures can easily move into several different genres as we see here. This is also a great story to get a feel for the characters and see if you enjoy Maberry's style. Hope to see more stories like this in the future.

 

Thanks to St. Martins Griffin for the free story. Visit them HERE look for the coming soon link with the King Of Plagues cover and read the story yourself :)