If my life was on the line and I needed a fictional character to rescue me, Joe Ledger would have to be near the top of my preferred list. This ex-Baltimore cop is the stereotypical killer that fights on the side of good, and he is more than willing to do some very evil things to make sure he accomplishes the mission. He never monologues with the bad guy, he just gets the job done no matter how bad the odds are. So it's always an exciting day when a new Joe Ledger book comes out and offers a chance to spend more time with Joe and the rest of Havoc Team as they save the world from yet another existential threat. This time a number of old threats are back to sow chaos and it is going to take all of RTI's resources to keep them at bay. Is there anything new to be found here or this just old material that's been recycled to feed the hungry fans of the series?

This one is a compilation of original short stories about everyone's favorite ex-cop, Joe Ledger, written by some of Jonathan Maberry’s "friends in the industry." Anthologies like this are never a good place to start a series and are mostly for fans that just want to spend more time with their favorite characters, and that certainly applies to me and Joe Ledger. This collection of authors is extensive and a few of them offer up crossover stories with Joe interacting with characters from their own series, which is extra fun if you already know those other characters. These authors are all clearly fans of Joe Ledger, but as expected, some of them bring Joe to life better than others. While each story is not a winner, overall I feel this was a good pick up and certainly worth a read, or a listen, while we wait on the next official story from Jonathan Maberry.

It has been a while since the last Rogue Team International book, Relentless, and it is finally time to find out if Joe Ledger's psyche has found a state of equilibrium. Joe Ledger has always been one of the most dangerous people in the world, with his fractured mind enabling him to do what needs doing without losing himself to the evil within him. He has always fought on the right side of the war against evil, but now that The Darkness exists within him, he has becomes a threat to everyone, including his own team members. Any return to the field carries a lot of risk, but that isn't going to stop Mr. Church from using his best weapon when the stakes get high. Dr Sanchez thinks Joe should retire, and he isn't alone in his opinion, but Joe and Church don't see it that way. Then a discovery in Cave 13 falls into the wrong hands, and it raises the threat level enough to mark Joe's return to leading Havoc Team. To the peril of everyone on both sides of the war.

As fans of this series know well, Joe Ledger's psyche was fractured by the traumatic experiences of his youth and he is barely able to keep it together on a good day. That makes him rather ill equipped to handle the devastating events that ended the last book, Rage, and it is obvious that he will never be the same. The question then becomes, what will happen to Joe's mind if he loses the battle that rages within him? And then, what damage will he do to those around him? Those questions and more weigh heavily on the minds of everyone that cares about him, but at the same time they all know that Rogue Team International is not able to stand against their current enemies without Joe Ledger. It is a no-win scenario for everyone involved and the stakes have never been higher.

The last Joe Ledger series came to a close with the formation of a new agency, Rogue Team International, which replaced the Department of Military Sciences after it fell out of favor with the current administration of the US government. RTI is much smaller than the DMS, but other than new team names and new call signs, it is still playing a similar role protecting the world from the largest and most deadly threats. In theory, RTI should be able to play an even bigger role now that it has no affiliation with any country, but since Mr. Church is still running things and Joe Ledger is still the main operative, the rest of the world isn't so quick to accept RTI's professed neutrality. Nevertheless, RTI is first on the scene when leaked footage appears to show the United States testing a new bio-weapon on the inhabitants of a small North Korean island. A bio-weapon that almost instantly turns anyone it comes into contact with into a rage filled killer...

Earlier in the series Jonathan Maberry did an excellent job of coming up with unique threats for each book and finding a way to explain the existence of mythical creatures with "scientific" reasons. This allowed Joe Ledger to exist in a world grounded in modern science and yet battle all kinds of fictional creatures to keep us safe. However, the last book, Dogs of War, re-used a lot of threats from earlier in the series and when this book started with pretty much the exact scene from the start of a prior book I instantly knew I was in for more of the same.

Joe Ledger has been delivering action with an attitude for a while now and Dogs of War marks the 9th full novel in this action packed series.  Joe Ledger and the DMS have faced quite a diverse set of adversaries along the way including the likes of zombies, aliens, vampires, super soldiers, and even some yet to be explained phenomena, yes I am looking at you Nicodemus. Of course if you are considering reading book 9 then you likely know all of that already and you also know that those encounters have taken their toll on the DMS with most surviving members of Echo team carrying around some serious emotional baggage. What manner of madness has Jonathan Maberry cooked up this time and will the DMS even be able to find their "A" game to deal with it?

This book grabs you right from the prologue as Joe Ledger asks a series of questions, including: Where were you when the lights went out? That's the question isn't it? Where you suddenly reminded that civilization and the comfort of infrastructure is just a garment that we wear? Did the sudden dark remind you that all of the things that we expect to be there for us are fleeting? You were absolutely sure someone was going to come and fix it right? Then there was a moment when you realized that the lights weren't coming back on, that maybe they wouldn't, that maybe they couldn't...

Some lose threads from book #3, The King of Plagues, get pulled on and things start to unravel for Joe Ledger and the DMS. It was uncovered back then that the Seven Kings had a list of all DMS members and their families, which was one of the main reasons that taking them out became so urgent. Once the Kings were all neutralized it seemed like the risk to the DMS families was eliminated but this turns out not to be true.  With Joe and Rudy in attendance to watch the Orioles play the Phillies on opening day a terrorist attack targets not just the innocent baseball fans in attendance but the DMS agents in particular. The remnants of the Seven Kings are back and this time they are making it personal.

The term Code Zero was coined in the first Joe Ledger book, Patient Zero, to indicate a threat composed of the Seif-al-Din virus, which if released would inflict a zombie plague upon the world. This book is pretty much a sequel to that first book with a smattering of threats from the other books thrown in for good measure. Over the course of the first five books of the series Joe Ledger and the DMS have turned aside one threat after another (designer plagues, pathogens, engineered viruses, etc) and they have been locking away samples of these threats in their most secure facility. Very few people even know these things exist and all of these secrets are closely guarded for good reason. However, this time around the threat comes from within the DMS itself and that makes it hard for Joe Ledger and Echo team to get the job done as they are unaware they have been betrayed...