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Summary
Summary
Beka Cooper is a rookie with the Provost's Guard, and she's been assigned to the Lower City. It's a tough beat, but Beka can hear the voices of the dead on the wings of pigeons, and Beka's birds clue her in to two major murderers on the loose. The rest of the Guard is busy investigating the fire opal killer, so it's up to Beka to nab the Shadow Snake.
Summary
Pierce begins a new Tortall trilogy introducing Beka Cooper, an amazing young woman who lived 200 years before Pierces popular Alanna character. For the first time, Pierce employs first-person narration in a novel, bringing readers so close to a character that they will love for her unusual talents and tough personality.
Author Notes
Author Tamora Pierce was born in South Connellsville, Pennsylvania on December 13, 1954. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Her first book, Alanna: The First Adventure, was published in 1983 and she became a full-time author in 1992. She writes fantasy books, mainly involving young heroines, for young adults. She is the author of numerous series including Song of the Lioness; The Immortals; Circle of Magic; Protector of the Small; The Circle Opens; Daughter of the Lioness; The Circle Reforged; Beka Cooper; and The Numair Chronicles. Her novel Battle Magic was a New York Times bestseller.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Pierce returns to the Tortall Realms for a new series, a kind of prequel to those of her popular "sheroes" Alanna, Kel and Aly. Her latest heroine is not a lady knight but a "Puppy," a police trainee whose talents lift her from the slums to the manor of Lord Gershom. The noble takes in Beka's impoverished family after the girl, at age eight, demonstrates near-magical abilities in law enforcement. Beka, now 16, begins her story with her first night on the job, told through journal entries. Assigned to two of the best Dogs (veteran officers) in the Jane Street kennel, Beka quickly distinguishes herself, assisted by winged informants (pigeons who carry the ghosts of murdered children and whisper only to Beka) and her aide-de-camp, Pounce, the purple-eyed cat (who will be familiar to Alanna devotees). Beka is drawn to solve two major crimes: one involving the disappearance of people hired to dig beneath the Lower City in search of precious "fire opals," and a scarier thread about the kidnapping and murder of children by a creature known only as the "Shadow Snake." Despite many action-packed scrapes with thieves and rogues, the pace lags a bit in this series opener. Fans of Pierce's previous forays into medieval fantasy, however, will likely savor every page, and Beka herself is a brave battler who shoulders an unwieldy narrative with nearly as much ease as she hobbles a cutpurse. Ages 10-13. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Middle School) Sword-and-sorcery meets police procedural in this latest from the wildly popular Pierce. Set some two hundred or so years before the Song of the Lioness Quartet, this new series introduces readers to sixteen-year-old Beka Cooper, a Puppy (trainee) in Corus's Guard. The protegee of the Lord Provost, whose attention she caught with her ability to hear the dead, she has been assigned to the best team of Dogs on the Lower City beat. Swiftly, Beka not only proves her enormous talent at Dog work but also discovers two ghastly crimes: someone has been hiring, then murdering, the desperately poor, and a mysterious figure has been kidnapping and killing the Lower City's children. The fun of this offering is in the dynamic characterization and action that take readers to Beka's inevitable triumph. Beka -- who narrates her story via a diary -- is appealing in her dedication to her fellow Lower City dwellers, and sketches of her compatriot Dogs and the criminals they sometimes apprehend and sometimes befriend are equally deft. Indeed, perhaps the book's greatest strength is its raw portrayal of the fine line between law and lawlessness in the choices the Dogs make as they do their jobs. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Having followed her signature heroine into the next generation with her Trickster duet, Pierce now looks back into the history of Tortall and finds another fierce, lovable gal who won't take any guff. Sixteen-year-old Beka Cooper, born hundreds of years before Alanna drew her first sword, has just signed on as a Puppy (trainee) with her city's crime fighters, unofficially known as the Dogs. Beka's extrasensory gifts and a firsthand understanding of her tough beat help her to scent two heinous criminals, whom she delivers to justice--despite the limitations of her apprentice role--by rallying a lively network of informants, mentors, and allies. Pierce deftly handles the novel's journal structure, and her clear homage to the police-procedural genre applies a welcome twist to the girl-legend-in-the-making story line. Leisurely infusions of detail frequently slow things down, but homely, often comic pauses interspersing epic deeds have become touchstones of Pierce's storytelling, and not even the strained surprise ending will prevent fans from begging for more about the avenging pup known as a Terrier among Dogs. --Jennifer Mattson Copyright 2006 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-Beka Cooper is a rookie with the Provost's Guard who can hear the voices of the dead with the help of pigeons, and the birds clue her in to two murderers on the loose. The trilogy (Bloodhound; Mastiff) is set in the same world as Pierce's popular Alanna, but 200 years earlier. The first-person narration makes for an intimate audio experience, especially in Susan Denaker's capable hands. © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Being the Journal of Rebakah Cooper dwelling at Mistress Trout's lodgings Nipcopper Close, the Lower City Corus, the realm of Tortall I have this journal that I mean to use as a record of my days as a Provost's Dog. Should I survive my first year as a Puppy, it will give me good practice for writing proper reports when I am required to write them as a proper Dog. By reporting as much as I can remember word by word, especially in talk with folk about the city, I will keep my memory exercises sharp. Our trainers told us we must always try to memorize as much as we could exactly as we could. "Your memory is your record when your hands are too busy." That is one of our training sayings. For my own details, to make a proper start, I own to five feet and eight inches in height. My build is muscled for a mot. I have worked curst hard to make it so, in the training yard and on my own. My peaches are well enough. Doubtless they would be larger if I put on more pounds, but as I have no sweetheart and am not wishful of one for now, my peaches are fine as they are. I am told I am pretty in my face, though my sister Diona says when my fine nose and cheekbones have been broken flat several times that will no longer be so. (My sisters do not want me to be a Dog.) My eyes are light blue gray in color. Some like them. Others hold them to be unsettling. I like them, because they work for me. My teeth are good. My hair is a dark blond. Folk can see my brows and lashes without my troubling to darken them, not that I would. I wear my hair long, as my one vanity. I know it offers an opponent a grip, but I have learned to tight braid it from the crown of my head. I also have a spiked strap to braid into it, so that any who seize my braid will regret it. I want to write down every bit of this first week of my first year above all. For eight long year I have waited for this week. Now it has come. I want a record of my first seeking, my training Dogs, my every bit of work. I know I will be made a Dog sooner than any Puppy has ever been. I will start to prove I know more than any Puppy has ever done my very first week. It is not vanity. I lived in the Cesspool for eight year. I stole. I have studied at the knee of the Lord Provost for eight more year, and run messages for the Provost's Dogs for three year, before I ever went into training. I know every street and alley of the Lower City better than I know the faces of my sisters and brothers, better than I knew my mother's face. I will learn the rest quicker than any other Puppy. I even live in the Lower City now. I know none of the others assigned to the Jane Street Kennel do so. (They will regret it when they must walk all the way home at the end of their watch!) So my first week is of particular importance in this journal. Pounce says I count my fish before they're hooked. I tell Pounce that if I had to be saddled with a purple-eyed talking cat, why must I have a sour one? He is to stay home during my first week as a Puppy. I will not be distracted by this strange creature who has been my friend these last four years. And I will not have my Dogs distracted by him. Four legged cats--not even ones who talk in cat but make themselves understood in Common--have naught to do with plain, honest Dog work. I am assigned to the Jane Street Kennel. The Watch Commander in this year of 246 is Acton of Fenrigh. I doubt I will ever have anything to do with him. Most Dogs don't. Our Watch Sergeant is Kebibi Ahuda, one of my training masters, my training master in combat, and the fiercest mot I have ever met. We have six Corporals on our Watch and twenty-five Senior Guards. That's not counting the cage Dogs and the Dogs who handle the scent hounds. We also have a mage on duty, Fulk. Fulk the Nosepicker, we mots call him. I plan to have nothing to do with him, either. The next time he puts a hand on me I will break it, mage or not. There is the sum of it. All Excerpted from Terrier: A Tortall Legend by Tamora Pierce All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
