Phil's Staff Picks

Maberry’s follow-up to Patient Zero (2009) brings Joe Ledger and his team back with an even more intense story. A scientist with visions of changing the world begins genetic experiments on both animals and humans with the hope of finishing the work started by Josef Mengele during World War II. He uses connections in various world governments to try to destroy the DMS and Ledger. With no backup available, Ledger must try to eliminate the threat while staying one step ahead of his pursuers. This is like a video game on steroids mixed with The Island of Dr. Moreau. Maberry has done an excellent job of ratcheting up the action while downplaying the ick factor that sometimes runs through his earlier books. Expect this straight-ahead thriller to hook action-crazed readers and inspire them both to seek out the first Ledger book and eagerly anticipate the next installment.

It would be difficult to imagine richer material for an audiobook reader, comedically speaking, than Joseph Heller's classic novel of wartime madness. Sanders is the lucky actor chosen to read Heller's masterpiece, and he does well by it, proceeding gamely through the novel's staggering array of comic set pieces and deliriously woozy dialogue. Heller's humor is straight-faced, requiring little more than a steady, sure voice, and Sanders offers just that. Line by line, joke by joke, Sanders reels through the marvelous phantasmagoria of Heller's World War II, tongue planted firmly in cheek. Caedmon's impressive package includes a 1970s-era recording of Heller reading selections from his book. Heller is a delightful contrast to Sanders, his slight lisp accentuating a marvelous Brooklyn accent. Heller reads as if with cigar perched on his lip and turns his novel into an extended borscht belt comic's riff.