Review to come only one new to me story in this one.

This is a collection of shorts that have been mostly previously published with a few new ones. You get the prequel story to Patient Zero and several other stories. The one I really liked had been referenced in another book but only as one line, so it was nice to see the entire thing. A good collection for fans of the series but may not be the best for someone to try if they don’t like spoilers for things that happen in the series. ( )

I'm a sucker for ex-mil/ex-cop characters that get the job done. Think Jack Ryan, Bob Lee Swagger, etc. This story has it all and then some. Well worth a read.

A lot of the short stories I’d already read, but I liked the ones I hadn’t yet. ( )

I love Maberry and, as far as I'm concerned, Ledger is his greatest creation, both the character and the series. And, Ray Porter, the narrator of this series, simply adds another layer of greatness, essentially greatness icing on top of a double-layer greatness cake.

That being said, the only reason this series got four stars instead of five is because, when you collect these shorter stories together, you start to see some of the devices that Maberry uses a touch too much. Things like

- The fact that assassins use a .22 calibre round to kill because it won't blow out the back of a skull, but rather bounce around inside and scramble the brains.

- The fact that Mr. Church seems to hate giving Ledger a day off. He's always just about to go to a ball game when Church pulls him into the next Big Event.

...and so on.

Still, this is an interesting alternative look into Ledger's adventures with these short, sharp stories. To be honest, the one that totally grabbed me was The Artifact simply because I can see this being a huge plot point to a future Ledger novel. I won't spoil it, but hot damn, this one completely excited me.

These stories are, to be honest, best read in chronological order. That is, read the story notes to determine exactly when these take place in relation to the novels and read them as they fall either before or after one of the bigger adventures.

I am really not one for action/adventure stories like the ones Maberry writes, and a series of them? Hell no.

But this is one series that just gets better, more fun, and richer as each new story gets added. ( )

I won this ebook arc through LibraryThing. I'm marking it read now, but I actually skipped two of the stories because of spoilers. This book is great for Joe Ledger fans, but it does have clear warnings at the beginning of each story that might spoil one of the books in the series.
I hope some of the typos are fixed before the final version is released. I was surprised how bad some of them were.

DMS is Department of Military Science. The series is mostly horror and very near future science fiction.

Countdown - too short and not necessary if you've read Patient Zero
Zero Tolerance - Like this one.
Deep Dark - Very good.
Material Witness - This one has made me interested in the Pine Deep books.
Changeling - good.
Mad Science - skipped for spoilers.
Artifact - very interesting ending.
The Handyman Gets Out - This is more action adventure than horror or science fiction.
Borrowed Power - skipped for spoilers. ( )