Joe Ledger Books and Stories in reading order

The Pine Deep Trilogy
The Joe Ledger Series
The Rot & Ruin Series
The Dead of Night Series
The Nightsiders Series

The JOE LEDGER series (novels and short stories, so far) in chronological order. (including the DEAD OF NIGHT, ROT & RUIN, BROKEN LANDS and V-WARS series)

COUNTDOWN

Short story teaser: “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.

** This story is included in the short story collection JOE LEDGER: SPECIAL OPS, available in print from JournalStone and on audio by Blackstone, read by Ray Porter

PATIENT ZERO

NOVEL #1 of the 10-volume Joe Ledger DMS (Department of Military Sciences) Series

Published in 2009

When you have to kill the same terrorist twice in one week there's either something wrong with your world or something wrong with your skills... and there's nothing wrong with Joe Ledger's skills. And that's both a good, and a bad thing. It's good because he's a Baltimore detective that has just been secretly recruited by the government to lead a new taskforce created to deal with the problems that Homeland Security can't handle. This rapid response group is called the Department of Military Sciences or the DMS for short. It's bad because his first mission is to help stop a group of terrorists from releasing a dreadful bio-weapon that can turn ordinary people into zombies. The fate of the world hangs in the balance

Available in trade paperback and eBook from St. Martin’s Griffin and on audio from Blackstone

ISBN-10: 0312382855 / ISBN-13: 978-0312382858

ZERO TOLERANCE

Short Story

This sequel to PATIENT ZERO brings Joe Ledger back into action, hunting for zombies in the deadly mountains of Afghanistan. .

Available in print in THE LIVING DEAD 2 edited by John Joseph Adams

** This story is included in the short story collection JOE LEDGER: SPECIAL OPS, available in print from JournalStone and on audio by Blackstone, read by Ray Porter

DEEP, DARK

Short Story

In an underground bioweapons lab a team of scientists working to develop super soldiers instead create something that is far deadlier and infinitely stranger. Joe Ledger and Echo Team must hunt –and be hunted—deep down in the dark.

** This story is included in the short story collection JOE LEDGER: SPECIAL OPS, available in print from JournalStone and on audio by Blackstone, read by Ray Porter

MATERIAL WITNESS

Short Story

A stand-alone short story that takes place in the early days of Joe Ledger’s service in the Department of Military Sciences, a top secret division of Homeland Security. Joe Ledger and the DMS must protect a Pine Deep resident spook and author who is in over his head with the wrong people and may know more than he is letting on.

** This story is included in the short story collection JOE LEDGER: SPECIAL OPS, available in print from JournalStone and on audio by Blackstone, read by Ray Porter

THE DRAGON FACTORY

NOVEL #2 of the 10-volume Joe Ledger DMS (Department of Military Sciences) Series

Published in 2010

Joe and the DMS 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.

Available in trade paperback and eBook from St. Martin’s Griffin and on audio from Blackstone

ISBN-10: 0312382499 / ISBN-13: 978-0312382490

DOG DAYS

Short Story

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.

Available on audio from Blackstone, read by Ray Porter

*** It is included in print in the new mass-market paperback edition of THE DRAGON FACTORY.

CHANGELING

Short Story

Joe Ledger teams with a mysterious British agent named Felicity to investigate a dangerous bioweapons factory.

** This story is included in the short story collection JOE LEDGER: SPECIAL OPS, available in print from JournalStone and on audio by Blackstone, read by Ray Porter

THE KING OF PLAGUES

NOVEL #3 of the 10-volume Joe Ledger DMS (Department of Military Sciences) Series

Published in 2011

Saturday 09:11 Hours: A blast rocks a London hospital and thousands are dead or injured… 10:09 Hours: 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 the this powerful new enemy on their own terms as he fights terror with terror.

Available in trade paperback and eBook from St. Martin’s Griffin and on audio from Blackstone

ISBN-10: 0312382502 / ISBN-13: 978-0312382506

ASSASSIN’S CODE

NOVEL #4 of the 10-volume Joe Ledger DMS (Department of Military Sciences) Series

Published in 200912

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.

Available in trade paperback and eBook from St. Martin’s Griffin and on audio from Macmillan

ISBN-10: 0312552203 / ISBN-13: 978-0312552206

A FOOTNOTE IN THE BLACK BUDGET

Short Story

Joe Ledger, Top and Bunny go to the bottom of the world all the way to the Mountains of Madness in this crossover with H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos.

***This story is not yet released. It will be included in the anthology THE MADNESS OF CTHULHU, edited by S.T. Joshi; late 2015

MAD SCIENCE

Short Story

Joe Ledger and Violin go after a kill-squad of Red Knights in this sequel to ASSASSIN’S CODE.

** This story is included in the short story collection JOE LEDGER: SPECIAL OPS, available in print from JournalStone and on audio by Blackstone, read by Ray Porter

BORROWED POWER

Short Story

Joe Ledger teams with a mysterious British agent named Felicity to investigate a dangerous bioweapons factory.

A story told in two parts: A young Mr. Church teams with Lilith to hunt monsters in the sewers beneath Paris; and when that ancient evil rises again, Joe Ledger and Violin close in for the kill.

** This story is included in the short story collection JOE LEDGER: SPECIAL OPS, available in print from JournalStone and on audio by Blackstone, read by Ray Porter

EXTINCTION MACHINE

NOVEL #5 of the 10-volume Joe Ledger DMS (Department of Military Sciences) Series

Published in 2013

The President of the United States vanishes from the White House for five hours. Next morning he is found, apparently safe and sound. Except that he claims that during the night he was abducted by aliens. 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. North Korea’s ultra top-secret weapons research lab is destroyed by a volcano –in an area where there has not been an eruption for forty millions years. All over the world reports of UFOs are increasing at an alarming rate. Key military personnel, politicians and scientists begin disappearing. And in a remote fossil dig in China dinosaur hunters have found something that is definitely not of this earth. 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.

CODE ZERO

NOVEL #6 of the 10-volume Joe Ledger DMS (Department of Military Sciences) Series

Published in 2014

A direct sequel to PATIENT ZERO. A rogue scientist within the DMS takes the Seif al Din pathogen (and dozens of other deadly and exotic weapons) and begins selling them to the highest bidders. Bizarre science-based terrorist attacks tear the nation apart –and at the heart of it are new outbreaks of the zombie plague that first brought Joe Ledger into the DMS. Joe and his crew team up with Arklight (from ASSASSIN’S CODE) in a running battle that leaves a trail of bodies from Los Angeles to the steps of the White House.

THREE GUYS WALK INTO A BAR

Novella

Joe Ledger teams with Malcolm Crow (from the Pine Deep Trilogy) and Sam Hunter (from Strip Search) to tackle a team experimenting with genetically-engineered werewolves.

This story is included in the anthology, LIMBUS II, available from Journalstone Publishing

ARTIFACT

Short Story

Joe Ledger goes after an enigmatic device that could hold the key to permanent sustainable energy –or could become the most dangerous weapon on earth.

** This story is included in the short story collection JOE LEDGER: SPECIAL OPS, available in print from JournalStone and on audio by Blackstone, read by Ray Porter

THE HANDYMAN GETS OUT

Short Story

Joe Ledger is naked and unarmed and has to escape a high-security facility armed with whatever he can find. Expect Joe to get cranky.

** This story is included in the short story collection JOE LEDGER: SPECIAL OPS, available in print from JournalStone and on audio by Blackstone, read by Ray Porter

PREDATOR ONE

NOVEL #7 of the 10-volume Joe Ledger DMS (Department of Military Sciences) Series

Published in 2015

A terrorist organization uses hijacked drones to launch a wave of terror across America. Joe Ledger and his team square off against a deadly old enemy.

KILL SWITCH

NOVEL #8 of the 10-volume Joe Ledger DMS (Department of Military Sciences) Series

Published in 2016

Joe and the DMS are torn apart by a conspiracy that strikes to the heart of the global intelligence community. ISIL teams are using directed-energy weapons to crash airplanes and darken American cities, spies are using brutal mind-control on Joe’s most trusted agents, and Joe encounters a monstrous evil greater than anything he’s fought before.

DOGS OF WAR

NOVEL #9 of the 10-volume Joe Ledger DMS (Department of Military Sciences) Series

Published in 2017

Dogs of War: Robots are no longer science fiction. Autonomous, programmed to react like animals: fast, relentless, deadly. From microscopic nanobots to massive self-guided aircraft. This technology is here, it’s assessable, 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. Let loose the Dogs of War.

DEEP SILENCE

NOVEL #10 of the 10-volume Joe Ledger DMS (Department of Military Sciences) Series

Published in 2018

Terrorists 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.

ATOLL

Short Story

Something very strange is happening on the Pacific atoll of Palmyra. Everyone who goes in –scientists or military—vanish without a trace. Joe, Top and Bunny are sent in to investigate and encounter something not of this world.

** This story is included in the anthology, JOE LEDGER: UNSTOPPABLE, published by Griffin in 2017.

ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE

Novella

Joe Ledger teams with rare books expert Lizzie Corbett to stop a madman from opening a gateway to a hell dimension.

** This story is included in the anthology HELLHOLE: An Anthology of Subterranean Terror, edited by Lee Murray

RAGE

NOVEL #1 of JOE LEDGER: ROGUE TEAM INTERNATIONAL

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.

JOE LEDGER: UNSTOPPABLE Co-edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt and Jonathan Maberry

Anthology / Published by St. Martin’s Griffin in 2017.

This is the first collection of all-original stories of Joe Ledger and the DMS written by some of today’s top authors of thrillers, science fiction, mystery and horror.

Stories include:

The Honey Pot by Steve Alten

Confusion by Nicholas Steven

Target Acquired by Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon

Vacation by Scott Sigler

Banshee by James A. Moore

Red Dirt by Mira Grant

Black Water by Weston Ochse

Instinct by Bryan Thomas Schmidt and G.P. Charles

No Guns at the Bar by Aaron Rosenberg

Strange Harvest by Jon McGoran

No Business at All by Javier Grillo-Marxuach

Ganbatteby Keith R.A. DeCandido

White Flame on Sunday by James Ray Tuck

Wet Tuesday by David Farland

Prince of Peace by Jeremy Robinson

Rookie by Joe McKinney

Three Times by Jennifer Campbell-Hicks

Psych Eval by Larry Correia

Crash Course by Dana Fredsti

Atoll by Jonathan Maberry

Also….JOE LEDGER makes cameo appearances in…

THE DEAD OF NIGHT SERIES

NOTE: Joe Ledger appears in this series as of book #3

DEAD OF NIGHT

Novel; published in 2011 / DEAD OF NIGHT Book #1

FALL OF NIGHT

Novel; published in 2014 / DEAD OF NIGHT Book #2

NOTE: Sam Imura of Echo Team co-stars

LONE GUNMAN

Short Story featuring Sam Imura

Direct sequel to FALL OF NIGHT

Published in NIGHTS OF THE LIVING DEAD, an anthology co-edited by Jonthan Maberry and George A. Romero

St. Martins Griffin, 2017

NOT THIS WAR, NOT MY WORLD

Short story featuring Sam Imura

Direct sequel to “Lone Gunman” and FALL OF NIGHT

To be published in WASTELANDS #3, an anthology co-edited by John Joseph Adams

Titan Books, June 2019

DARK OF NIGHT

Novella; published in 2016 / DEAD OF NIGHT Book #3

In the weeks following the zombie apocalypse, Joe Ledger encounters Stebbins County Police Officer Dez Fox and the band of children she’s trying to protect, as well as Rachael Elle, a cosplayer who now leads her own group of ‘heroes’ fighting to survive.

Co-written by Rachael Lavin for JournalStone Publishing. Available on audio from Blackstone, read by Ray Porter.

STILL OF NIGHT

Collection; November 9, 2018 / DEAD OF NIGHT Book #4

Includes the original story “Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight”; the reprint story “Fat Girl with a Knife”; and the original novel “Still of Night” (Co-written by Rachael Lavin)

JournalStone Publishing. Available on audio from Blackstone, read by Ray Porter.

THE ROT AND RUIN SERIES

NOTE: Joe Ledger is mentioned in the first books but becomes a series regular by book #3. Set approximately 14 years after the events of DEAD OF NIGHT

ROT & RUIN

Book #1 of the ROT & RUIN series / Published in 2010

Fifteen-year-old Benny Imura and his friends live in the small fenced-in town of Mountainside fourteen years after a zombie apocalypse. The dead rose, we fell. Benny begins to learn the trade of zombie hunting from his older brother, Tom…and then goes outside the fence to learn the realities of this new and twisted world of the dead.

Available in hardcover, paperback and eBook from Simon & Schuster; and on audio from Recorded Books.

DUST & DECAY

Book #2 of the ROT & RUIN series / Published in 2011

Benny, Nix, Chong and Lilah the Lost Girl accompany Tom on a journey far beyond the fences of Mountainside to unlock the secrets of a world that might not be as dead as they all thought. And on the way they discover a lingering evil close to home.

Available in hardcover, paperback and eBook from Simon & Schuster; and on audio from Recorded Books.

WARRIOR SMART

Book 2.5 of the ROT & RUIN series / Graphic Novel, published in 2015

Benny, Nix, Chong and Lilah encounter Farmer John, who runs a huge farm deep in the Rot & Ruin, and who has a terrible and desperate plan for reclaiming the world from the living dead. Art by Tony Vargas / Covers by Alex Ronald / Colors by Oliver Lee Acre / Lettered by Robbie Robbins

From IDW Publishing

FLESH & BONE

Book #3 of the ROT & RUIN series / Published in 2012

Reeling from the devastation of Dust & Decay, Benny Imura and his friends plunge deep into the zombie-infested wastelands of the great Rot & Ruin. But the Ruin is far more dangerous than any of them can imagine. Fierce animals hunt them. They come face to face with a death cult. And then there’s the zombies—swarms of them coming from the east, devouring everything in their paths. And these zoms are different. Faster, smarter, and infinitely more dangerous. Has the zombie plague mutated, or is there something far more sinister behind this new invasion of the living dead?

Available in hardcover, paperback and eBook from Simon & Schuster; and on audio from Recorded Books.

FIRE & ASH

Book #4 of the ROT & RUIN series / Published in 2013

In the gripping conclusion to the action-packed “standard bearer” (Booklist) of zombie series, the threat of death is given new life. Benny Imura and his friends have found the jet and Sanctuary—but neither is what they expected. Instead of a refuge, Sanctuary is a hospice, and the soldiers who flew the plane seem to be little more than bureaucrats who have given up hope for civilization’s future. With Chong hovering between life and death, clinging to his humanity by a thread, Benny makes a startling discovery: A scientist may have discovered a cure for the zombie plague. Desperate to save Chong, Benny and his friends mount a search and rescue mission. But they’re not the only ones on the hunt. The reapers are after the cure too, and they want to use it turn all the zombies into superfast shock troops—and wipe humanity off the face of the earth.

Available in hardcover, paperback and eBook from Simon & Schuster; and on audio from Recorded Books.

BITS & PIECES

Book #5 of the ROT & RUIN series / Published in 2015

A collection of short stories and novellas

Bits & Pieces fills in the gaps about what we know about First Night, surviving the plague, and traveling the land of Rot & Ruin. Eleven all-new short stories from Nix’s journal and eleven previously published stories, including “Dead & Gone” and “Tooth & Nail,” are now together and in print for the first time, along with the first-ever script for the Rot & Ruin comic books.

Available in hardcover and eBook from Simon & Schuster

THE BROKEN LANDS SERIES

BROKEN LANDS

Book #1 of the BROKEN LANDS series; Book #6 of the ROT & RUIN series

Ever since her mother’s death, Gabriella “Gutsy” Gomez has spent her days flying under the radar. But when her mother’s undead body is returned to her doorstep from the grave and Gutsy witnesses a pack of ravagers digging up Los Muertos—her mother’s name for the undead—she realizes that life finds you no matter how hard you try to hide from it.

Meanwhile, Benny Imura and his gang set out on a journey to finish what Captain Joe Ledger started: they’re going to find a cure. After what they went through in the Rot and Ruin, they think they’ve seen it all, but as they venture into new and unexplored territory, they soon learn that the zombies they fought before were nothing compared to what they’ll face in the wild beyond the peace and safety of their fortified town

Published by Simon & Schuster, 2018

LOST ROADS

Book #2 of the BROKEN LANDS series; Book #7 of the ROT & RUIN series

Gutsy Gomez’s danger-filled journey to save those infected with the zombie plague continues in New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Maberry’s terrifying follow-up to Broken Lands.

Gabriella “Gusty” Gomez lost her mother, and now she’s losing her home.

Gutsy and her friends, along with Benny and his crew, have just survived a massive attack on New Alamo by the Night Army—a mix of mindless shambling los muertos and sentient half-zombie ravagers. She’s also reeling from the revelation that the residents of her town were the lab rats of the biological testing facility linked to creating the most dangerous zom, the Raggedy Man, who controls all of the living dead.

And the first raid was only a test. The real Night Army is coming, and this time, it’ll be a handful of survivors against seven billion zombies.

Available August 25th, 2020 

THE V-WARS SERIES

ALL OF US MONSTERS (V-Wars, issues #6-8)

Comic Book

Joe Ledger makes a cameo in a three-issue arc in the upcoming V-WARS comic from IDW. He’ll join Luther Swann and V-8 in a battle against vampire super soldiers.

Now collected as V-Wars Vol II graphic novel from IDW

WET WORKS

Short Story

Joe Ledger and Violin are drawn into the vampire wars that have rocked the world.

** This story is included in the shared-world anthology, V-WARS: SHOCKWAVES, published by IDW.

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