Over the years, the Department of Military Sciences, Echo Team, and Joe Ledger have faced off against zombie outbreaks, evil hackers, Men in Black, Hitler clones, and even a sentient AI. Their latest threat? A government headed by a simple-minded buffoon out to revoke their charter, and a machine that creates earthquakes in population centers… while it drives the population into a violent, murderous rage!

The Joe Ledger series has been around for the last decade, and ten books in, it’s almost become its own subgenre. With Deep Silence, the tenth entry in the series, Jonathan Maberry follows the same, tried and true formula: bad guy unearths or invents some forbidden, ancient or evil tech Ledger’s team comes face-to-face with it, the US government maintains distance, Echo Team suffers a casualty or two, but they win. The series has lasted ten years and ten novels with this formula, to the point where Deep Silence is wildly self-referential; this year’s threat is a combination of two threats from previous books in the series.

But you know what? There’s nothing wrong with a good popcorn novel. The action is fast-paced, and the story is rewarding, especially if you’ve kept up with the series. It feels like fan service, with all the little nods and callbacks to Echo Team’s previous adventures. A couple of characters are retired by the end of this one, including a secondary character fans of the series will be sad to see leave.

Maberry’s paint-by-numbers approach to the series works mostly because of the characters he’s skillfully developed over the last ten novels. Ledger, the tortured former cop/soldier who is self-diagnosed with a sort of dissociative identity disorder, shines best when his foil is equally on point. This time, it’s a three-headed monster: Gadyuka, a legendary Russian spy who is more ghost story than not; Valen, a member of a Russian terrorist group called the New Soviet, who believes that the Cold War never ended; and a nameless, social media-obsessed US President, who ham-handedly wields the power of the US government but doesn’t understand the tools with which he has. The villains are fun to read and are perfectly matched to Ledger and his team.

I have heard rumblings that this is the final entry in the series, and if so, Deep Silence is a fitting goodbye. Yes, the tenth entry in the Joe Ledger series is more of the same. But if the “same” is awesome, who am I to complain?

Pros: Solid action, cool villains, callbacks to previous novels in the series.

Cons: Basically the same as several of the other entries, and whatever happened to Cobbler the Cat?

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.

#2018 #2019 #DeepSilence #JonathanMaberry #JoeLedger #bookreview