Reviews of Deadline have highlighted the book's improvements over Feed and McGuire's avoidance of the problems normally associated with the middle work of a trilogy.

Most humans reside in controlled zones, with rigorous blood testing and decontamination used to stop the live KA virus from spreading.

Kelly had faked her death using a clone after her colleagues, researching the abnormally high death rate among people with "reservoir conditions" (in whom the active virus is present but confined to one part of the host's body, a condition Georgia had while alive), began dying at a suspiciously high rate: actions possibly linked to the conspiracy uncovered in the previous book.

The team flees to Weed, California, where Magdalene "Maggie" Garcia, billionaire pharmaceutical company heiress and head Fictional at After the End Times, lives.

The group next returns to Maggie's, and Shaun sends the collected data to Mahir Gowda (a British resident and the website's head Newsie), hoping he can find independent verification.

Dr. Wynne reveals he organised the Oakland outbreak to kill Kelly and the bloggers; he is part of a widespread conspiracy to keep people afraid and compliant while the zombie virus is stabilised.

[2] Selena MacIntosh of Persephone Magazine noted several improvements over Feed, particularly tighter plotting and storytelling, along with deeper characters.

[5] However, as MacIntosh was less impressed overall with the first novel, she passes some of the credit for Deadline's success to a new editor McGuire notes was previously uninvolved.

[5] In the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Brian Fitzpatrick wrote McGuire takes the "political intrigue of Feed and ratchets it up to 11" and highly praised the novel's conclusion.

[6] The use of the deceased Georgia as an advisory voice in the slightly unhinged Shaun's head was praised by reviewers: Bedford called it a "great tool to use for internal dialogue" and congratulated McGuire for her ability to set different tones for the two characters, while MacIntosh and Fitzpatrick identified it as a plausible and understandable reaction to the loss of a loved one.