{"id":38939,"date":"2025-06-08T16:55:17","date_gmt":"2025-06-08T20:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=38939"},"modified":"2025-06-08T16:55:17","modified_gmt":"2025-06-08T20:55:17","slug":"joe-ledger-secret-missions-volume-2-by-jonathan-maberry-z-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=38939","title":{"rendered":"JOE LEDGER: SECRET MISSIONS, VOLUME 2 by Jonathan Maberry \/ Z-View"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/4h2HVMr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/stallonezone.com\/zone\/2025\/z060825zview_ledger_sm2_maberry.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"750\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/4mJ5xtk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">JOE LEDGER: SECRET MISSIONS VOLUME TWO<\/a> by Jonathan Maberry<\/p>\n<p>First sentence&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The card was tucked into the cleft of a crack in the vinyl of my old Ford Escape&#8217;s dashboard.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>The Overview:\u00a0 Beware of Spoilers\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Joe Ledger is an ex-Army Ranger and ex-Baltimore police detective.\u00a0 Ledger was recruited and is now an agent for the United States&#8217; several-levels-above-top-secret Department of Military Sciences.\u00a0 This organization deals with threats not only to the US, but the world.\u00a0 Most of their missions involve stopping terrorists using advanced technology to create bio-weapons.\u00a0 Some of Ledger&#8217;s assignments have ventured into the realm of the supernatural&#8230; and while Ledger might not believe in that &#8220;stuff&#8221; &#8212; his team has to deal with it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>JOE LEDGER: SECRET MISSIONS VOLUME\u00a0 TWO <\/strong>features six tales.\u00a0 Five by Maberry and one <em>(Mr. Church&#8217;s Day Off)<\/em> by Ray Porter.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em><strong>Three Guys Walk into a Bar<\/strong><\/em> &#8211; A serial killer (killers?) has come to Pine Deep.\u00a0 Police Chief Malcolm Crow and Deputy Mike Sweeney might be a bit put out when a PI named Sam Hunter and Joe Ledger show up.\u00a0 But before long, they&#8217;ll be glad the two have arrived.\u00a0 A serial killer is a terrible thing.\u00a0 What&#8217;s come to Pine Deep is much, much worse.<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><em>Alter Boy<\/em><\/strong> &#8211; Toys was damned.\u00a0 Things he had done in the past assured it.\u00a0 Even the name everyone called him, <em>Toys<\/em>, was a moniker he hated.\u00a0 But he lived with it.\u00a0 Just like he lived with memories of acts for which he could never atone.\u00a0 No matter how much good he did Toys knew his soul would never be saved.\u00a0 Then Toys met a woman.\u00a0 And over time as their relationship deepened Toys began to have hope.<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><em>Dog Days<\/em><\/strong> &#8211; New recruits to the\u00a0 Department of Military Sciences (and other US agencies) hear stories about Joe Ledger and his dog partner Ghost.\u00a0 Their exploits are legendary.\u00a0 How a warrior and his canine became partners (family?) was born from tragedy.\u00a0 <em>Dog Days<\/em> is that tale.<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><em>Twilight Falls<\/em><\/strong> &#8211; Over the Sahara desert a jet leaves chemtrails.\u00a0 Shortly after whatever life below falls over dead.\u00a0 Men, women, children&#8230; even camels.\u00a0 This has happened several times.\u00a0 Whoever is behind the jet may be testing efficiency for a mass event.\u00a0 Ledger, Top and Bunny perform a HALO drop.\u00a0 Easy in.\u00a0 Getting out not so much.<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><em>All the Devils are Here<\/em><\/strong> &#8211; In 1971 a natural gas field in the desert of Turkmenistan collapsed.\u00a0 It created a huge crater which filled with methane gas.\u00a0 Geologists thought it would quickly burn off.\u00a0 The fire has been raging since.\u00a0 The locals call it the <em>Gates of Hell<\/em>.\u00a0 An insane man with access to <em>The Unlearnable Truths<\/em> believes the fiery crater is a true door to hell.\u00a0 And the psycho plans to open it.<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><em>Mr. Church&#8217;s Day Off<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>&#8211; When you&#8217;re a hands-on leader of an international organization responsible for keeping the world safe, do you ever get time off?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">If you&#8217;ve never read any of the Joe Ledger novels, this is a good jumping on point.\u00a0 Don&#8217;t let the Volume Two in the title scare you.\u00a0 You&#8217;ll get a nice taste of the kind of tales that feature Ledger along with some crossovers from other characters\/situations in the Maberry universe.<\/p>\n<p>Jonathan Maberry has another winner!\u00a0 Joe Ledger tales are the best!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Rating:<\/strong><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/stallonezone.com\/zone\/logo\/zview_a.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"100\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>JOE LEDGER: SECRET MISSIONS VOLUME TWO by Jonathan Maberry First sentence&#8230; The card was tucked into the cleft of a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-z-view"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38939"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39064,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38939\/revisions\/39064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}