Book Review: Patient Zero

Tonight I'd like to review a book I recently read called Patient Zero.  It's written by Jonathan Maberry and is published by St. Martin's Griffin.  It's 421 pages and was published in 2009 and I stumbled upon it in a Barnes and Noble when I was looking for another novel that I needed to read for one of my classes.  Since the semester is over I've had time to read it and, wouldn't you believe it, I did.

The book starts with a cop being picked up by some FBI agents several days after he had to kill several people in the raid of what was believed to be a terrorist hideout in the US.  These agents take him to a secure facility and introduce him to a man of many talents who heads up a super secret division of the US government that stops terrorist threats.  It's after he meets this man that he is subjected to his first test: re-killing a terrorist he already shot several times with his .45.  You guessed it: terrorist zombies.

SPOILER ALERT

This cop is recruited for this super secret government agency to stop a terrorist born zombie epidemic.  Not only that, he's to lead a group of totally awesome special forces dudes to do it.  And why not?  He himself is totally super awesome and is able to beat up all of the special forces dudes.  This is his entry to lead the small group of the most awesome of the awesome super special forces dudes.

Okay, I'll admit it now in case you didn't understand already: this book is a little over the top.  But that's alright because it's fun.  It reads like a Bruce Willis/Chuck Norris/Steven Seagal movie in that everyone in the book is the most totally awesomely badass at his job in a world inhabited only by total awesome badasses.  My only real complaint about that is that it takes about half the book to set up all the necessary badassery to make the book possible.

So, of course, in a book like this there would need to be some equally badass bad guys to make the good guys look as badass as their bad asses would allow (okay, I'll stop using that word now).  So the zombies come from a state-of-the-art laboratory in the middle of the Afghan desert that is set up by the world's richest, and most charitable, drug company CEO.  It's an underground facility run by the genius and beautiful wife of Bin Laden on steroids.  So this lab was set up and funded by the CEO so that the jihadists can create a zombie virus to scare the Americans into creating and distributing a vaccine that will make the CEO billions of dollars.

The problem with this scheme is that the jihadists (obviously) don't care about the money and just want to kill all the Americans with the virus.  The hubris of the CEO prevents him from being able to control the jihadists; they run roughshod all over him behind his back and create newer and newer versions of the virus.  With the CEO's help they have a very elaborate scheme to let the Americans, including the protagonist and the super secret dudes, know some of what they're doing, only a few versions behind.

The book pinnacles at a re-dedication ceremony for the Liberty Bell in which a new Liberty Bell is to be dedicated (one that won't crack).  Unfortunately, the US government chose a woman to cast the new bell because her ancestor cast the original bell (or the second one, there's a story in there that the original bell didn't make it to the US so what we all call the Liberty Bell is actually the second one.  I didn't check on the story so I don't know its veracity).  Well this woman, it turns out, is the girlfriend of the brother of the wife of Bin Laden on steroids so she's in on the whole zombie virus plot.  It ends up with the First Lady and the wife of the Vice President in the same room as the new Liberty Bell which, get this, is rigged to shoot out hundreds of darts full of zombie virus.  Like I said, a little over the top.

In addition to this the current generation of zombie virus (the Liberty Bell darts have a previous generation) has evolved to such that it will give people zombie strength without cutting off oxygen to the brain.  Essentially it gives people all the benefits of being a zombie without any of the drawbacks (other than the dead-ness).  This is the version of the virus with which the genius jihadists have been infected.  Also Bin Laden on steroids is there with a bunch of makeup and posing as a Secret Service agent.  Again, a little over the top.

As you can imagine, this sets up the ultimate battle of intelli-zombie Bin Laden on steroids versus totally awesome, super secret cop dude and guess who wins..... you guessed it!  The totally awesome, super secret cop dude.

SPOILER ALERT OVER

The zombies were written as a 28 Days Later kind of zombie: virulent, fast and hungry.  They were written pretty well.  Overall, the idea of the zombie virus wasn't taken any further than you've already seen.  It's essentially Resident Evil if the virus did exactly what is supposed to do.

The book is a fun ride, although it can be a bit much.  It reads a lot like a military novel: a lot of blustering and slow-mo action scenes with a cast of role fillers rather than actual people, not that that's a bad thing.

Bottom line: This is a fun summer read (especially after finishing the semester with The Elephant Man and A Boy Called It) and it has some good zombie action.  It also has some good double agents and double crossing.  Add it to your list if you cant get to it by October, otherwise read it when you're on a plane or a long car trip.