From New York Times Bestselling author (creator of the Netflix series V Wars), Jonathan Maberry comes the first in a brand new series featuring Joe Ledger and Rogue Team International. A small island off the coast of Korea is torn apart by a bioweapon that drives everyone–men, women, and children–insane with murderous rage. The people behind the attack want Korea reunified or destroyed. No … Korea reunified or destroyed. No middle ground. No mercy. Soon Japan, China, and the United States are pushed to the brink of war, while terrorists threaten to release the rage bioweapon in a way 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.
more
RAGE by Jonathan Maberry is the first book in a new series featuring Joe Ledger. This time he is no longer with the Department of Military Sciences, but leading a team of independent troubleshooters, Havoc Team. The new series is called Rogue Team International. This action thriller / military thriller can be read as a standalone novel, but the previous Joe Ledger series would give the reader more of the back stories of the key players.
Joe Ledger and Havoc Team start out by trying to rescue a new girl who has been kidnapped and is being held in Syria. From there, this newly formed group on soon trying to stop a terror group that has released a bioweapon on a small island of the coast of Korea. Does this terror group want Korea re unite or tear itself apart? Can Havoc team stop the killing?
The story starts off with a scene that immediately pulls the reader in and never lets him or her off the rollercoaster of action and emotion. The main character, Joe Ledger, is well-developed, compelling and someone the reader can cheer for. His motivation is believable and well-drawn. The secondary characters enhance the story and the relationships are believable.
For an action / military thriller, I loved the style that Maberry used. While there is some discussion of weapons, it does not go into minute detail. I believe this approach makes this more of an action thriller that will appeal to a wider audience. The fast-paced story also takes the reader to many different locations ranging from Syria, Turkey, Greece, North Korea, South Korea, Norway, Arizona, California, Virginia, Sweden, and Maryland to Florida and more.
Overall, this novel is a fresh, entertaining, emotional ride. Be aware that there is plenty of violence in this story, but there is also friendship, family, and brotherhood/sisterhood relationships.
This is the only book that I have read by this author but I am looking forward to the next book in the series as well as going back and reading the original Joe Ledger series. I believe those readers that enjoy action thrillers and military thrillers will enjoy this book.
Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press – St. Martin’s Griffin and Jonathan Maberry for a digital ARC of this novel via Net Galley and the opportunity to provide an honest review. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way.
Jonathan Maberry amps up the danger, risk, and action with his first book in the Joe Ledger International series. As always, his science is terrifyingly real, especially when spun into current politics. RAGE is everything fans of Maberry have come to expect and more…a smart, terrifying, and action-packed thriller
Read everything he writes
The DMS may have disbanded, but Joe Ledger isn’t one for resting on his laurels. No longer beholden to the government of the United States, Mr. Church has put together a new organization that exists under, but is not beholden to, the UN: Rogue Team International. Now-Colonel Joe Ledger and his international team of shooters (goodbye Echo Team, hello Havoc Team!) are the first line of defense against global threats involving mad science run amok.
Although Rage is billed as the first Rogue Team International novel, there’s a whole hell of a lot of history behind it thanks to the 10 Joe Ledger books that came previously. While Jonathan Maberry does his best to fill new readers in on the big plot points that came before, seasoned veterans will note the reappearance of two major bad guys from the old DMS days. Much like the last four or five Joe Ledger books, Rage builds off what came before and acts somewhat like a sequel to prior installments. It may not be necessary, but the Joe Ledger fanboy in me highly recommends you start way back at square one if you’re not already familiar with this universe and its characters.
Rage is also, perhaps, the most comic book-like Joe Ledger entry thus far (as a fan of comic books, this is not necessarily a bad thing, mind you). While even the DMS books had a sort of Jame Bond-ian flare about them thanks to the larger-than-life mega-wealthy and ultra-resourceful super-villains hellbent on global domination, Mr. Church seems to have gotten in on the act now, too. Rogue Team International operates out of a secret, super-sophisticated high tech underground lair hidden in an inactive volcano on a privately owned island. Blessedly, everyone involved is in on the joke and absolutely no one, including Maberry himself, are taking it too seriously. In fact, there’s a pretty hilarious conversation between Ledger, Church, and team psychologist, Dr. Rudy Sanchez, about all this, which helps ground things a bit. It’s a welcome touch of self-aware humor that no doubt mimics what the reader is thinking and gets everyone on the same page. Hell, even the bad guys are in on the joke, realizing that they, too, are, in fact, super-villains right off the funny pages and in need of a cool nickname for their brotherhood of evil!
It’s not all fun and game, though. While Rage has a good deal of humor, and Ledger is as much a sarcastic wise-ass as ever, it’s also wicked, dark, and brutal when it needs to be. A weaponized pathogen has been unleashed off the coast of North Korea that causes the infected to become psychopathically, violently enraged murderers. By the time Rogue Team learns of the incident, it’s too late… everyone on the island has brutally killed one another — and it’s only the beginning. What follows is a race against time to find the culprits before they can launch a much larger attack and drag the world into another global war.
The rage virus at the core of this book ain’t no joke, and Maberry doesn’t shy away from the resultant horrors. Some of the scenes in here might be among the most brutal Maberry has written, including a vicious depiction of hand-to-hand combat late in the book that had me squirming (and that’s even on top of a fight scene in the shower that, erm, really goes some places…).
What really put Rage over the top for me, and right into five-star territory, was the last couple chapters. Obviously, I won’t spoil it for you, but I can’t think of the last time as book — let alone a long-running series like the Joe Ledger books — have left me so utterly shaken and surprised by the lengths this author will go to punch us right in the heart (and then, in a brilliant display of sadomasochism that can only exist between an author hellbent on torturing his audience and the readers that love him for it, leave us asking for more, for Christ’s sake!). Yeah, goddamn it… I’m gonna need that next Rogue Team International book right…fucking…now.
It’s Joe Ledger! Read it.