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Hell & High Water
(THIRDS, series book 1)
By Charlie Cochet
Dreamspinner Press, July 2014
ISBN: 978-1-63216-012-6
Four stars

This popular series had somehow escaped my notice, so I picked up book one to see how I liked it. The seventh volume of the THIRDS series is due out in July 2016.

The core premise of this series is a world where chemical warfare during the Viet Nam war inadvertently unleashed a mutation into the human species that created a race of predatory shifters in the world—not that the shifters are predators themselves, but that they shift into one species of predator or other. This new race is called the Therians, and human child Dexter Daley lost his birth parents to the riots that broke out as a result of human fear of anything different. But Dexter was adopted by a black man name Tony Maddock, who also adopted an orphaned Therian baby named Cael. Thus Dex himself has no fear of Therians, but lives in a world where prejudice abounds, and Therians are often marginalized in spite of federal laws that protect them.

Well, that sounds familiar.

Disgraced for doing the right thing on the Human Police Force in New York City, Dex is moved to the THIRDS force and placed in a highly-skilled human/Therian team code named Destructive Delta on the human/Therian police force known as THIRDS (an acronym so forced I can’t remember what it stands for). As the wise-ass Dexter finds his way among his new team—all of whom are suspicious of him except for his brother Cael and his father Tony--he gradually begins to understand what makes them tick. Oddly, enough, being gay isn’t a problem for anyone, not for the police force; not even for the THIRDS. And that’s fine, because Cochet takes this premise and throws down a group of quirky, interesting, layered cops and drags us into their story through the eyes of the two central protagonists—Dexter himself, and his Therian partner Sloane Brody.

The dual plot arcs of a series of murders, apparently by a Therian, and the evolving relationship between the brooding Brody and the optimist Dex, keep the story interesting and emotional. Cochet has a good way with words, although she does fall into what I see as a classic m/m trap that all manly men have to have sleek modern apartments in dark colors. That aesthetic detail aside, Cochet worms her way into our hearts with her characters, both central and supporting, and builds a strong foundation in book one for the rest of the series. The ending is satisfying, even as it creates a cliffhanger for the next book, and indeed the entire series going forward. Dex Daley is a lovable irritating puppy of a man, and Sloane Brody is a wounded soul whose healing becomes a driving force as the series goes forward. I’ve already bought book two.