Joe Ledger Books in Order By Jonathan Maberry
Main Joe Ledger Series
0.5 Countdown (2011)
1. Patient Zero (2009)
1.1. Zero Tolerance (2011)
1.2. Material Witness (2011)
1.3. Deep, Dark (2011)
2. The Dragon Factory (2010)
2.5. Dog Days (2011)
3. The King of Plagues (2011)
4. Assassin’s Code (2012)
4.5. Borrowed Power (2013)
5. Extinction Machine (2013)
5.5. Joe Ledger: Special Ops (2014)
6. Code Zero (2014)
7. Predator One (2015)
8. Kill Switch (2016)
9. Dogs of War (2017)
10.Deep Silence (2018)
Rogue Team International Series
1. Rage (2019)
2. Relentless (2012)
3. Cave 13 (expected 2023)
What is Joe Ledger about?
The Joe Ledger series follows the titular Captain Joe “Cowboy” Ledger, a former Army Ranger and Baltimore police detective. Joe is hired by a clandestine, investigative agency known as the Department of Military Sciences (DMS). The DMS is a shadow agency formed for the purpose of pursuing technologically advanced threats to the US and the world at large by terrorists. Threats encountered throughout the series range from designer pathogens that create zombies to transgenics used for ethnic cleansing. The series can’t really be put into a single genre and spans horror, science fiction, war, military fiction, thriller and a few more we could throw in for good measure.
Who is Jonathan Maberry?
Jonathan Maberry is an American suspense author who was born in Kensington, Philadelphia. He’s not just an author but also an anthology editor, comic book writer, magazine feature writer, playwright, content creator and writing teacher/lecturer. He was named one of Today’s Top Ten Horror Writers. He’s a New York Times best-seller, five-time Bram Stoker Award-winner, and is the editor of Weird Tales Magazine and president of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers. He is the recipient of the Inkpot Award, three Scribe Awards and his books have been sold to more than thirty countries. He writes in several genres including thriller, horror, science fiction, epic fantasy, and mystery; and he writes for adults, middle grade, and young adults.
The Joe Ledger Main Series in Order
There are a few short stories that have appeared in anthologies and collaborative efforts and in addition to appearances of Joe Ledger in other series’ written by Jonathan Maberry. For this post we’ve included only the main novels and novellas as they are much more accessible. Reading all of the Joe Ledger stories is currently quite tricky as they’re not readily available or are part of different series. If you want to read absolutely everything involving Joe Ledger then we recommend reading everything Jonathan Maberry has ever written, just to be safe. For this reason we’ve decided to only include the following:
0.5. Countdown (2011) 
Joe Ledger Book #0.5
3,500 words, 35 pages, 19 mins to read.
Published by Gollancz
3.89 out of 5 on Goodreads
Countdown: A Joe Ledger Prequel Short Story to Patient Zero
“I didn’t plan to kill anyone. I wasn’t totally against the idea, either. Sometimes things just fall that way, and either you roll with it or it rolls over you. Letting the bad guys win isn’t how I roll.”
Meet Joe Ledger, Baltimore PD, attached to a Homeland task force… who’s about to get a serious promotion.
1. Patient Zero (2009) 
Joe Ledger Book #1
128,000 words, 432 pages, 14 hrs and 47 mins to read.
Published by Gollancz
4.16 out of 5 on Goodreads
‘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.’
Police officer Joe Ledger, martial arts expert, ex-army, self-confessed brutal warrior is scared. The man he’s just killed is the same man he killed a week ago. He never expected to see the man again, definitely not alive, and definitely not as part of the recruitment process for the hyper-secret government agency the Department for Military Sciences. But the DMS are scared too: they have word of a terrorist plot straight from a nightmare – a bid to spread a plague through America – a plague that kills its victims and turns them into zombies.
Time is running out and Joe has shown he has the abilities they need to lead one of their field teams.
And so begins a desperate three-part mission – to contain the zombie outbreaks, to break the terrorist cell responsible and to find the man in their own team who is selling them out to the terrorists.
Patient Zero is an astonishingly fast moving, incredibly violent and down-right terrifying thriller – a new breed of techno-thriller that plays on our fears of mad science.
1.1. Zero Tolerance (2011) (Audiobook only) 
Joe Ledger Book #1.1
44 mins to listen
Published by Blackstone Audiobooks
4.08 out of 5 on Goodreads
This sequel to Patient Zero brings Joe Ledger back into action.
Zero Tolerance picks up a few weeks after the close of Maberry’s action-thriller Patient Zero. Dropping back into the world of former Baltimore cop Joe Ledger, the Department of Military Sciences, and flesh-eating zombies, fans of the series will finally see the tying up of a few loose ends.
1.2. Material Witness (2011) 
Joe Ledger Book #1.2
13,680 words, 55 pages, 1 hr and 16 mins to read.
Published by St. Martin’s Press
4.11 out of 5 on Goodreads
This short thriller takes Joe Ledger into the mysterious, troubled town of Pine Deep, Pennsylvania, the setting for Maberry’s chilling ‘Pine Deep Trilogy’. In Pine Deep, nothing is what it seems.
Takes place several weeks after the events in PATIENT ZERO.
1.3. Deep, Dark (2011) 
Joe Ledger Book #1.3
90,000 words, 32 pages, 50 mins to read.
Published by St. Martin’s Griffin
4.13 out of 5 on Goodreads
A Joe Ledger Prequel Story to The Dragon Factory
It was the dirty end of a dirty job.
Three of us were hunting horrors in the dark, seven thousand feet below Camelback Mountain. If we couldn’t wrap this up before the clock ticked down then the whole place would go into hard lockdown. The Vault would become our tomb. The government would disown us, our own people would have to write us off. But the things we hunted wouldn’t care. When our lights and weapons and food ran out, they’d hunt us.
2. The Dragon Factory (2010) 
Joe Ledger Book #2
175,320 words, 486 pages, 16 hrs and 14 mins to read.
Published by St. Martin’s Griffin
4.15 out of 5 on Goodreads
Joe Ledger and the DMS (Department of Military Sciences) go up against two competing groups of geneticists. One side is creating exotic transgenic monsters and genetically enhanced mercenary armies; the other is using 21st century technology to continue the Nazi Master Race program begun by Josef Mengele. Both sides want to see the DMS destroyed, and they’ve drawn first blood. Neither side is prepared for Joe Ledger as he leads Echo Team to war under a black flag.
2.5. Dog Days (2011) (Audiobook only) 
Joe Ledger Book #2.5
57 mins to read.
Published by Blackstone Audiobooks
4.23 out of 5 on Goodreads
Joe Ledger returns in this tale that follows the tragic conclusion of The Dragon Factory.
In the wake of a devastating personal loss, Joe Ledger and his new canine partner, Ghost, go hunting for the world’s deadliest assassin.
3. The King of Plagues (2011) 
Joe Ledger Book #3
174,000 words, 435 pages, 16 hrs and 7 mins to read.
Published by St. Martin’s Griffin
4.19 out of 5 on Goodreads
Saturday 09:11 A blast rocks a London hospital and thousands are dead or injured… 10:09 Joe Ledger arrives on scene to investigate. The horror is unlike anything he has ever seen. Compelled by grief and rage, Joe rejoins the DMS and within hours is attacked by a hit-team of assassins and sent on a suicide mission into a viral hot zone during an Ebola outbreak. Soon Joe Ledger and the Department of Military Sciences 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 Joe Ledger meets this powerful new enemy on their own terms as he fights terror with terror.
4. Assassin’s Code (2012) 
Joe Ledger Book #4
168,000 words, 422 pages, 15 hrs and 35 mins to read.
Published by St. Martin’s Griffin
4.30 out of 5 on Goodreads
In ASSASSIN’S CODE, the fourth book in New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Maberry’s Joe Ledger series, Joe Ledger and the DMS go on a relentless chase to stop an ancient order of killers from plunging the entire world into Holy War.
When Joe Ledger and Echo Team rescue a group of American college kids held hostage in Iran,the Iranian government then asks them to help find six nuclear bombs planted in the Mideast oil fields. These stolen WMDs will lead Joe and Echo Team into hidden vaults of forbidden knowledge, mass-murder, betrayal, and a brotherhood of genetically-engineered killers with a thirst for blood.
Accompanied by the beautiful assassin called Violin, Joe follows a series of clues to find the Book of Shadows, which contains a horrifying truth that threatens to shatter his entire worldview.
They say the truth will set you free…
Not this time.
The secrets of the Assassin’s Code will set the world ablaze.
4.5. Borrowed Power (2013) 
Joe Ledger Book #4.5
11,700 words, 53 pages, 15 hrs and 35 mins to read.
Published by St. Martin’s Griffin
4.21 out of 5 on Goodreads
Some secrets should remain hidden.
Some secrets refuse to die.
Something evil is buried beneath the streets of Paris.
Time is running out.
Thirty years ago the man known as Mr. Church and the assassin called Lilith teamed-up to stop a terrible weapon from being used against the innocent.
Now that same evil rises again and Joe Ledger teams with Lilith’s daughter, the beautiful killer Violin, to keep the world from falling into darkness.
BORROWED POWER is an original Joe Ledger adventure featuring an action cameo by Mr. Church.
5. Extinction Machine (2013) 
Joe Ledger Book #5
160,000 words, 433 pages, 14 hrs and 53 mins to read.
Published by St. Martin’s Griffin
4.27 out of 5 on Goodreads
The President of the United States vanishes from the White House.
A top-secret prototype stealth fighter is destroyed during a test flight. Witnesses on the ground say that it was shot down by a craft that immediately vanished at impossible speeds.
All over the world reports of UFOs are increasing at an alarming rate.
And in a remote fossil dig in China dinosaur hunters have found something that is definitely not of this earth. There are rumors of alien-human hybrids living among us.
Joe Ledger and the Department of Military Sciences rush headlong into the heat of the world’s strangest and deadliest arms race, because the global race to recover and retro-engineer alien technologies has just hit a snag. Someone—or something–wants that technology back.
5.5. Joe Ledger: Special Ops (2014) 
Joe Ledger Book #5.5
90,000 words, 284 pages, 8 hrs and 41 mins to read.
Published by JournalStone
4.28 out of 5 on Goodreads
Captain Joe Ledger. Former cop. Former Army Ranger. Currently the top-kick of Echo Team, an elite squad of first-class shooters who roll out to face down the world’s most dangerous terrorists. Not fanatics with explosive vests or political hostage takers. Joe and his team square off against terrorists who have the most advanced and exotic weapons of mass destruction. Designer bioweapons. Cutting edge transgenics. Real mad scientist stuff.
6. Code Zero (2014) 
Joe Ledger Book #6
173,000 words, 470 pages, 16 hrs and 3 mins to read.
Published by St. Martin’s Griffin
4.34 out of 5 on Goodreads
For years the Department of Military Sciences has fought to stop terrorists from using radical bioweapons—designer plagues, weaponized pathogens, genetically modified viruses, and even the zombie plague that first brought Ledger into the DMS. These terrible weapons have been locked away in the world’s most secure facility. Until now. Joe Ledger and Echo Team are scrambled when a highly elite team of killers breaks the unbreakable security and steals the world’s most dangerous weapons. Within days there are outbreaks of mass slaughter and murderous insanity across the American heartland. Can Joe Ledger stop a brilliant and devious master criminal from turning the Land of the Free into a land of the dead?
7. Predator One (2015) 
Joe Ledger Book #7
182,000 words, 448 pages, 16 hrs and 55 mins to read.
Published by St. Martin’s Griffin
4.36 out of 5 on Goodreads
On opening day of the new baseball season a small model-kit airplane flies down from the stands and buzzes the mound, where a decorated veteran pilot is about to throw out the first ball. The toy plane is the exact replica of the one flown by the war hero. Everyone laughs, thinking it’s a prank or a publicity stunt. Until it explodes, killing dozens.
9. Kill Switch (2016) 
Joe Ledger Book #8
193,000 words, 536 pages, 17 hrs and 56 mins to read.
Published by St. Martin’s Griffin
4.31 out of 5 on Goodreads
What do you do when the power goes off?
A terrorist group has acquired one hundred E-bombs. Each bomb’s electromagnetic pulse is powerful enough to blow out all power and all technology from a major city. The terrorists plan to hit one hundred American cities in a campaign of destruction. Word has gotten out about the coming blackout and gangs, criminals and terrorist strike teams are poised to attack when the lights go out.
9. Dogs of War (2017) 
Joe Ledger Book #9
191,000 words, 536 pages, 17 hrs and 45 mins to read.
Published by St. Martin’s Griffin
4.36 out of 5 on Goodreads
Dogs of Robots are no longer science fiction. Autonomous, programmed to react like fast, relentless, deadly. From microscopic nanobots to massive self-guided aircraft. This technology is here, it’s accessible, and it’s dangerous. What’s even scarier is that almost anyone can get their hands on it.
A freelance terrorist uses the latest generation of robot dogs to deliver WMDs into cities across America. Sophisticated military weapons systems turn on their human masters. A technological apocalypse is coming and we may be too late to stop it.
Joe Ledger and a newly rebuilt Department of Military Sciences square off against this new and terrible threat. Dogs of War pits Joe against a merciless new enemy and an army of techno-terrorists in a race to prevent a global destruction.
10. Deep Silence (2018) 
Joe Ledger Book #10
177,000 words, 480 pages, 16 hrs and 23 mins to read.
Published by St. Martin’s Griffin
4.37 out of 5 on Goodreads
The tenth Joe Ledger novel in the New York Times bestselling series
Terrorists-for-hire have created a weapon that can induce earthquakes and cause dormant volcanoes to erupt. One terrifying side-effect of the weapon is that prior to the devastation, the vibrations drive ordinary people to suicide and violence. A wave of madness begins sweeping the country beginning with a mass shooting in Congress. Joe Ledger and his team go on a wild hunt to stop the terrorists and uncover the global super-power secretly funding them. At every step the stakes increase as it becomes clear that the end-game of this campaign of terror is igniting the Yellowstone caldera, the super-volcano that could destroy America.
DEEP SILENCE pits Joe Ledger against terrorists with bleeding-edge science weapons, an international conspiracy, ancient technologies from Atlantis and Lemuria, and an escalating threat that could crack open the entire Earth.
Rogue Team International Series (Joe Ledger Spin Off)
1. Rage (2019) 
Rogue Team International Series #1
188,000 words, 464 pages, 17 hrs and 28 mins to read.
Published by St. Martin’s Griffin
4.35 out of 5 on Goodreads
Rage is the first title in Jonathan Maberry’s brand new Joe Ledger spin-off series of international weird science thrillers.
A small island off the coast of Japan is torn apart by a bioweapon that drives everyone—men, women, and children—insane with murderous rage. The people behind that attack want Korea united or destroyed. No middle ground. No mercy. And they are willing to punish any country that stands in the way—the United States, China, and Japan could all be consumed by a plague of pure destructive slaughter.
Joe Ledger leads his newly formed band of international troubleshooters in their first mission to stop the terror cell, fighting alongside agents from North and South Korea. With the lives of billions at stake, Ledger is willing to bring his own brand of terror to this frightening new war.
Rage is the first of the new adventures of Joe Ledger and Rogue Team International.
2. Relentless (2012) 
Rogue Team International Series #2
199,000 words, 512 pages, 18 hrs and 29 mins to read.
Published by St. Martin’s Griffin
4.39 out of 5 on Goodreads
In New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Maberry’s thrilling Relentless , Rogue Team International joins Joe Ledger in a new hunt that spans the globe and journeys deep into the terrifying landscape of the human heart.
JOE LEDGER’s world has been torn apart. The people closest to him have been savagely murdered and Ledger is on the hunt for the killers. His already fragile psyche has cracked apart, allowing a dangerous darkness to overwhelm him.
His hunt takes him deep into the world of the deadly black market weapons sales, and standing in his way are a new generation of private military contractors. These mercenaries have been enhanced with cutting-edge cybernetics and chemical enhancements, transforming them into real-world super soldiers. Stronger, faster, harder to hurt, and fitted with built-in weapons. They are beyond anything Joe has ever faced.
But he is not the Joe Ledger they expected to fight. He is defined by the Darkness now. The attempt to destroy him―to break him―has backfired. Instead his enemies have turned him into a far more fearsome weapon.
Everyone is out for blood.
Overall
Jonathan Maberry’s Joe Ledger series is a fun, action-fuelled, thriller horror series with plenty of highlights, spanning 10 novels and many short stories. If this is something that interests you then we are sure that picking up a book or two from this series will scratch your crazy zombie/monster/UFO/nazi itch.
If you have enjoyed any of Jonathan Maberry’s work and want to learn more about him or any other of his work, then feel free to check out his website.
Which one is your favourite or most looking forward to picking up next?
Let us know!
Happy reading!
Total Word Count
Main Joe Ledger Series
- Total Word Count: 1,849,200
- Total Time to Read/Listen: 195 hrs and 57 mins to finish.
Rogue Team International Series
- Total Word Count: 387,000
- Total Time to Read/Listen: 35 hrs and 57 mins to finish
More of the same, but different:
Things to Note:
- Word count is an approximation.
- Amount of pages may differ due to different publications, font style and/or size etc.
- Time spent reading is generally an approximation based on the word count and the average reading time. The average reader will read 250 WPM (Words Per Minute).
- This is the original publisher of the books.
- The current Goodreads score at the time of writing.
Leave a Reply