FROM AMAZON: Saturday, 0911 hours — A blast rocks a London hospital and thousands are dead or injured.

1009 hours — Joe Ledger arrives on scene to investigate. The horror is unlike anything he has ever seen.

Compelled by grief and rage, Ledger rejoins the Department of Military Sciences, and within hours he's attacked by a hit team of assassins and sent on a suicide mission into a viral hot zone during an Ebola outbreak.

Soon Ledger and the DMS begin tearing down the veils of deception to uncover a vast and powerful secret society using weaponized versions of the Ten Plagues of Egypt to destabilize world economies and profit from the resulting chaos. Millions will die unless Ledger meets this powerful new enemy on its own terms as he fights terror with terror.

This book has Joe dealing with his grief after the end of the previous book. He is Europe when a London hospital is blown up. The bombing is part of a plot from a new enemy, the Seven Kings. The Kings are a group that use terror and crime to fill their pockets. And the Kings have just promoted a new King of Plagues, someone the DMS has fought before. They are planning on releasing ten Plagues to sow terror in the world and now the DMS needs to stop it before lots of people die. Lots of action as always and the good guys come out ahead in the end. ( )

I understood Joe's feeling of adrenaline shock when he looked over his year at the end of the book. I've had years where I've had multiple life-changing events happen in one year. You look back and are stunned. Who was that person?

The other characters are dealing with identity issues as well.

When I read "The King of Plagues" again, I will keep this theme in mind. ( )

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Title: The King of Plagues
Series: Joe Ledger #3
Editor: Jonathan Maberry
Rating: 1 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 492 / 160
Words: 151K / 50K

Synopsis:

DNF@30%

My Thoughts:

By the 30% mark Maberry had used the term “hate crime” 15 times. I quit reading when he used the term to justify a muslim special forces guy beating people so badly that they ended up in the Emergency Room because they used words he didn't like. It's called Free Speech, for good AND bad. When you start telling people what words they can and cannot say or use, you have entered the Deep State.

So adios Maberry, you confirmed my fears about you and I'll be avoiding you like the plague from now on.

★☆☆☆☆ ( )

So far at least, I can say that I've never been disappointed by a Maberry novel. I loved his Pine Deep series and the Joe Ledger books are equally as good.

I think the only thing that I'm never wild about is the celebrity name-dropping he's always done. I guess it's part of his schtick, but it's the only thing that tends to annoy me. He did it in the last Pine Deep novel and he did it again at with this one, going so far as to give U2's Bono a small walk-on toward the end. I know why the scene was written, and, to be honest, I think it would have been far more effective with a fictional star, because I wouldn't have been reading that whole scene thinking, Why Bono? Does he sound like Bono? Would Bono say that exactly that way?> That sort of thing.

So, while a bit of an annoyance, it's not a deal breaker. Nor was the occasional over-the-top we-protect-those-who-can't-protect-themselves hooah rah-rah chest-thumping his fighters sometimes lapse into. I've known real people (a cop who also did a volunteer stint in a violent Middle East country) who engaged in the same thing. It's never my favourite parts of his novels, but again, I know why they're in there.

But these are minor quibbles. For pacing, for fun characters, for some of the best damn action scenes ever written? Hell yes, Maberry's my man. I love the plots, I love the DMS, I love all of it.

Great books. ( )