{"id":11900,"date":"2019-05-08T14:57:28","date_gmt":"2019-05-08T18:57:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=11900"},"modified":"2022-08-14T09:24:55","modified_gmt":"2022-08-14T13:24:55","slug":"hell-high-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/11900","title":{"rendered":"Hell & High Water"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hell & High Water<\/a><\/em> (2014\/2018) Charlie Cochet<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Dexter Daley’s career in the human police force is over–he just doesn’t know it yet.<\/p>\n

After testifying that his partner shot a unarmed teenager Therian in the back, he’s put on leave, and then beat up by his fellow officers. Eventually, he’s sent to THIRDS, the human-therian unit that deals with human-therian crime.<\/p>\n

This story started out fantastic. I really liked Dex and his family.<\/p>\n

Both (Dex’s) parents had been killed during the riots when he was five years old. He\u2019d been adopted by his father\u2019s friend and work partner, Anthony Maddock. A year later, his baby Therian brother was rescued and adopted.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dex ends up on a team with both his father and his brother (it specifies this is allowed by regs, but dating relationships are not).<\/p>\n

Dex is smart, and he see precisely how messed up the unit is from day one. I’m mentioning this, because it has bearing on problems I had with the story at the end.<\/p>\n

He doesn\u2019t want me here. If I stay, it means he has to leave Gabe behind, and he\u2019s not ready to do that.
\n…
\n\u201cAsh is a certified prick. He\u2019s channeling his pain into anger that he takes out on whoever tries to step into Gabe\u2019s shoes. Cael is in his own little world because he doesn\u2019t want to face what happened.
\n…
\n\u201cCalvin and Hobbs are seriously codependent on each other. We both know how dangerous that can be. We have protocols and right now, I\u2019m not sure they\u2019d adhere to them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So the team is a mess. But they’re still sent out on missions and are currently working on a high profile serial murder case. But we’ll come back to that.<\/p>\n

The world building was very interesting. Therians happened\/were created during the Vietnam war from a bio-warfare experiment gone wrong. A great deal of thought was put into shifting, and the effect it would have on the Therian–there’s even a name for it: Post-Shift Trauma Care.<\/p>\n

The tech was a bit iffy, but for the most part nothing off-the charts ridiculous.<\/p>\n

About halfway through the story, one bit of world-building made me twitch. They talk about “Canidaes” (wolf shifers) and “Felids” (cat shifters) but then we have “Bear Therians”. Why? Why not Ursids? That really REALLY bugged me for some reason.<\/p>\n

Moving along.<\/p>\n

Remember that bit where Calvin & Hobbes are described as co-dependent? Yea, they put the rest of the team in danger because of it, just as Dex predicted might happen.<\/p>\n

Although I feel like it’s a bit nit-picking, the place where the tech was off, it was really off.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Styx only has a few cameras inside and one toward the front entrance. Nothing out the back, since patrons aren\u2019t supposed to exit that way. I\u2019m going to run the last three months through Themis. Shouldn\u2019t take more than a few minutes.\u201d <\/p>\n

Themis played the video at high speed, tiny white squares popping up over every face it came across, while a narrow screen on the right side scrolled information, names, details, dates, times, addresses, anything related to the individuals who popped up on the screen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A video search. Of three months of data. With facial identification and recognition. Takes just a few minutes.<\/p>\n

(giggles)<\/p>\n

That’s adorable.<\/p>\n

And the reason it’s ridiculous is because in that same chapter we have this:<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you get Intel to cross-reference Gabe Pearce\u2019s name with the victims?\u201d
\n…
\nI got Intel to run Gabe\u2019s name through Themis and cross-reference it with our victims like you asked.\u201d Dex was surprised. He hadn\u2019t expected the results so quickly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So you’ve got the computing power for facial recognition and identification but you think it’s going to take a long time to cross reference text<\/em>?<\/p>\n

Nope. Not buying it.<\/p>\n

As for the rest of it, I knew who the bad guy was almost immediately, as well as how he was doing the killing. And I just can’t believe that any of the characters would have been unable to think of that on their own. IT WAS OBVIOUS.<\/p>\n

Anyway. Moving along once again.<\/p>\n

Now we come to the romance. Of course Dex falls for his Team Leader, Sloane Brodie. And of course Brodie falls right back. (Because this is a romance after all.)<\/p>\n

Initially the two act like it’s just sex and no big deal. Then came this conversation, towards the end (so perhaps a little spoilerly).<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever happens between us has to stay between us, or one of us will be transferred to another team. You know that.\u201d <\/p>\n

Dex nodded. How the hell could he keep something like this from his dad? Worse, from Cael? It would break his brother\u2019s heart if he found out Dex had kept secrets from him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This really REALLY bothered me.<\/p>\n

Dex is a straight shooter–it’s what got him into trouble on the human police force. Additionally, Dex saw precisely what the death of Sloan’s former partner (and lover) did to Sloan and to the team.<\/p>\n

So why the HELL would he agree to go along with that? And I find it implausible that Tony didn’t see what was going on in EITHER case. <\/p>\n

So, in summary, I was enjoying the story and the world-building and was planning to read the next book until Dex agrees to keep his relationship with Sloan secret–knowingly putting the team in danger.<\/p>\n

No. I absolutely do not buy that AT ALL.<\/p>\n

So I’m done.
\nPublisher: Dreamspinner Press
\nRating: 5\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hell & High Water (2014\/2018) Charlie Cochet Dexter Daley’s career in the human police force is over–he just doesn’t know it yet. After testifying that his partner shot a unarmed teenager Therian in the back, he’s put on leave, and then beat up by his fellow officers. Eventually, he’s sent to THIRDS, the human-therian unit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,8,42,148,26,56,16],"tags":[50,544],"class_list":["post-11900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fantasy","category-mystery","category-police","category-queer","category-romance","category-sexual-content","category-supernatural","tag-boinking","tag-mm"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-35W","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":17537,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/17537","url_meta":{"origin":11900,"position":0},"title":"The Fangs of Freelance","author":"Michelle","date":"June 28, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"The Fangs of Freelance (2017) Drew Hayes (Fred, the Vampire Accountant) \u201cHold on, do you think I\u2019ve been acting as the face of the company, only to shove the actual accounting onto someone else? 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