Hell & High Water : THIRDS

Dex makes a testimony that puts his police partner in jail. It also makes him boyfriendless and almost jobless. But his adoptive father steps up, and pulls Dex into the world of the Thirds, a shifter police-type force trying to keep the peace between the humans and the shifters. SLoane is the leader of the team DEx is placed in, and from the very start, he knows they still haven't dealt with the loss of their team mate, the one Dex replaces. There are other, darker forces at work, and when faced with the death of 3 HumaniTherian activists, Dex knows he has his work cut out to make the team accept him, especially Slaone, to whom Dex has a powerful reaction to.

A different take on shifters, the Thirds agents are mostly Therian, cat shifters of some kind, and they need extra special care after shifter, hence the need for a partner. Sloane and Dex have an head butting reaction, and its quite amusing how Dex deals with it differently to Sloane. Dex is witty, has excellent taste in *old music* but Sloane is straight laced, down the line, lets get this work done! These two, along with the rest of the team made for some interesting reading.

I enjoyed it, and will keep going with this series, Dex and Sloane dont get a full HEA, just a happy-for-now sort of ever-after, so there is more to come from these two! And it isn't going to be a picnic, I can tell!

Mark Westfield narrates, and this is the first I've listened to by this narrator. He has a deep clear *reading voice* and a clear distincion between the characters, making conversations between multiple characters clear and concise and with no problem making out who is talking at which time. Emotions come across in all the right places, and you get all the drama too, just where you need it. His voice made it easy for me to listen, and I will certainly listen to other work narrated by him.

4 stars for the narration, 4 for the story, and 4 overall.

I loved this series when I read it the first time so I was super excited to start the audiobooks. Mark Westfield is a superb narrator, I just fell in to this world again and was so immersed in the story I felt like I didn't take my headphones off for 2 days. I exploited every little opportunity to listen to it.

So this is book 1 where everything begins. This is the story of Sloane and Dex, but so much more than that it's the introduction to this fabulous world Charlie has created. Dex has been working for the human police force as a detective for ten years. Following an intense court case involving Dex having turned his partner in for murdering an innocent civilian he is dismissed from the police force.

Sloan Brody is a defence agent for the THIRDS and also a Therian. A virus that spread rapidly during the war was treated via a vaccination Eppione.8 thus starting a waterfall of events that lead to the mutation of the virus which changed human DNA creating Therians - humans who can shift in to animals. Sloane is a jaguar therian and team leader of destructive delta at the THIRDS (Therian-Human Intelligence Recon Defense Squadron).

Following his discharge from the HPF Dex is sent to work at the THIRDS and becomes Sloane's new partner. They get off to a rocky start as Sloane's original partner was murderered on the job and he's chased away every partner since. But Dex with his happy, teasing, snarky attitude eventually wins him over. I LOVE Dex, he's such a loveable MC and he's up there with some of my favourite book characters of all time. Sloane is more reserved and still full of hurt and pain following the death of his partner but I loved him too.

Secondary characters are absolutely amazing and so well developed. You can tell that every character has been thought out and planned and each with their own personality and style. Mark really portrays this well when you are listening to it and I commend him for being able to switch between voices so easily.

There's plenty of action, adventure, twists and turns and psychopaths in this story. Loved listening to book 1 and cannot wait for the others! On to book 2!