Beka Cooper: Terrier     By Tamora Pierce   Release Date: Buy it Today! Random House Ratings Action Romance Characters Overall Purchase on Amazon. Purchase at Powell’s. Find independent bookstores near you.

A fantasy detective novel set in Tamora Pierce’s Tortall universe. What’s not to love?

Once Beka Cooper grasps a problem she won’t let it out of her teeth until she solves it, a trait that earns her the nickname “Terrier” from the other “puppies” in her training group. Still a trainee in the Provost’s Guard (commonly known as the Provost’s Dogs), she is learning the lower district of Corus with the help of her senior Dogs, Goodwin and Tunstall. When odd gems seem to be making an appearance within the city and nine diggers go missing, Beka begins to investigate the coincidences and trails that seem connected in corpses. With the help of her fellow “Puppies” (fellow trainees) and a few “Rats”(Those of the court of the Rouge), not to mention her cat Pounce, she will protect her citizens from the mysterious Shadow Snake and the corrupt landlord, Crookshanks.

There are a number of different elements that made this novel excellent. Tamora Pierce is well known for creating detailed worlds that come alive, and this book is no exception. While it falls with-in the already established Kingdom of Tortall , the capital city of Corus takes on a life of its own as the center place for this mystery. Unlike her previous books that dealt with problems on a more kingdom spanning stage, this book is solely set in one city, primarily one district, and therefore the city becomes its own character.

Many creative elements abound in the book from the use of animal analogies (which could have been annoying, but instead just give more colloquial charm to the book) and the use of Beka’s first person voice. Beka can “hear” the ghosts of the dead through her Gift (magic) and these voices travel on pigeons, servants of the Black God. She can also use her gift to talk to spinners, something like mini-tornados, which catch near-by voices and sounds and keep them whirling inside until someone like Beka can alleviate the spinners of their burden. That element puzzled me a little more, because these spinners are on multiple street corners and seem to be a part of city life. I would have liked a little more explanation as to where they came from.

While the book is a thrilling read for anyone who has read the other Tortall books, which start with the Alanna books (Lioness Quartet), this book also stands on its own. In fact it has less connection than the other series had, because it takes place two hundred years before the events in Alanna . Little names and references will be familiar to readers of the other books, but this one, more than any, other stands on its own. And I personally think that this is the tightest and most interesting of her books so far.

One thing that readers of the Alanna books will rejoice at though, is the character of Pounce, a small black cat with purple eyes. Yep, you guessed right. Our old friend Faithful is back and just as snarky as ever. Maybe we’ll even find out his story this time around, and what exactly he is.

Despite my praise, there were a few things that bothered me. Primarily, I’m bothered by the female knight that shows up. Now, maybe it’s just been a while since I read Alanna , but it seems like 200 years is a somewhat short period of time for the view of women knights to have changed that much. Maybe in the Alanna books she does mention that there were female knights in the past in Tortall, but this knight is not particularly treated like an oddity. It’s not enough to really bother me, but I was always conscious of it. I suppose it will depend on how the rest of the trilogy plays out. The other thing that bothered me, or at least made me wonder, I put at the very end of the review, since it might contain what you consider spoilers for this book or the Alanna books.

My other problem with the book was purely design and style problems. While I normally love a shiny cover, I think the use of gold on this one really detracts from the image of Beka. I keep feeling like she’s a modern girl thrown back into a medieval society, because she looks out of place on the cover. Another design choice that puzzled me was the use of dragonflies in the interior of Beka’s journal. Now, there are just no dragonflies in the book at all. The use of dogs, cats, rats, or pigeons would have all made sense, or the artist could have just gone for a pretty scroll work. But no, someone specifically chose dragonflies, and I would love to know why.

The last thing that bothered me was a sense of “why”–as in, why are we able to read this story? Now, first in the book, we have Eleni Cooper’s journal, and she is the mother of one of the characters in the Alanna books. Fine, that make sense, and she could certainly have her ancestor’s journal. But then the next two entries are from Beka’s mother’s journal and from Guardsman Tunstall’s journal. It seemed like the author was a bit lazy, wanting to give back-story, and set-up things before Beka’s journal might logically include the details.

Tamora Pierce is not my favorite writer of all time. I adored the first two books of her four part Alanna series, but became disenchanted when my ship (fandom term for two characters that you want to get together, short for relationship) turned out to be destined for failure. It was years before I went back, finished reading all the books, and realized that Alanna and her future husband were far better suited for each other. (If you wondered about that whole mess like I did, Pierce has an essay on her website that explains why things turned out the way they had to. I found it fascinating as a writer.) I then read First Test (Protector of the Small) , but lost interest in reading the overall series, then went to The Immortal’s Quartet, which comes before Protector of the Small, and enjoyed it. I started Trickster’s Choice, as it was about Alanna’s daughter, but quickly realized that I needed to read Protector of the Small first. Which I never did. So as you can see, I’ve certainly never read all of her books. She has a whole other series set in another world (Circle of Magic) that I haven’t even touched. And I don’t think her writing style is all that unique, though she does a good job at creating a fantasy world. Overall, she’s a good writer, but not the best.

But I respect Tamora Pierce greatly as an advocate for young adult fantasy books about girls. She speaks out about the strong female heroine, and her Alanna books held one of the first real fighting females for young women. Now, it’s a stereotype all of its own, but in the early 80s, young women did not have these role models. Disney princesses were still Snow White and Cinderella. While there might be YA fantasy books aimed at women, these women still took passive roles as healers and companions. Pierce changed these preconceived notions, writing a book that tried to create a strong magic and sword wielding heroine. Which is why I respect her. She still talks about these role models, encourages writers to push these boundaries, and even runs a fan site called Shereos with Meg Cabot (Princess Diaries) where young women can gather and talk about their female role models and support each other.

Ratings Reasons:

Action 5 – Fast paced and the mystery kept me guessing at least a little until the end. It was certainly the kind of story where I was pretty sure that I figured out who the villain was before the book was over, but I was never sure.

Romance 3 – There’s lots of set up, and hints of what is to come, plus a few cute side couples. Future books will most certainly have more romance. Also, see my spoiler analysis at the end for more romance related stuff.

Characters 5 – I found all the characters to be interesting and developed, which can be hard to do sometimes from a first person point of view. While of course all the side characters have their own tales to tell, I really felt like I got to know them in the book.

Overall 5 – It was a fun book. I hadn’t actually been planning to buy Beka , but I was given it at a bookseller’s annual regional conference when I hung around the Random House table too much. I had been planning to buy this one next year when it came out in paperback, but I’m glad I didn’t wait to read it. I’d been kind of disenchanted with Pierce’s books lately, but I can’t wait until the next book comes out in September. I highly recommend reading this, especially if you love a good mystery.

Extras:

Tamora Pierce maintains a great website filled with extra information about her books, along with release dates for future titles.

If you’ve been interested in reading the Alanna books, but haven’t gotten around to it, check out this “review”. Its part of a web comic called Unshelved , about a young adult librarian named Dewey. Their Sunday comics are “book talks,” promoting good books in all genres. Read through the archives as soon as you have a chance.

If you like the mystery elements of Beka Cooper, check out Ghosts in the Snow, Threads of Malice, and Valley of the Soul by Tamara Siler Jones. These are much more adult books, and they definitely have gruesome elements, including rape and the death of both children and animals, but they are excellent fantasy murder mysteries.

And just in case you need more tales in the world of Tortall, Fanfiction.net has 277 pages of fan fic about Pierce’s books. If the above link doesn’t work, because fanfiction.net is strange about linking, go to category books, then Tamora Pierce.

Parents:

13+ Yes, there are mentions of sex, etc. All of Pierce’s books have that. Of course, it’s also always behind closed doors. And in this one, Beka always calls it canoodling, which makes me giggle. She also calls her breasts “peaches.” Which likewise makes me giggle. I would like to know if that is her slang, or common slang. Pierce has an interesting essay here on why her books often include sex and violence.

Warning: The following may very well contain spoilers for this book, speculations on spoilers for the rest of the series, and a bit of spoilers for the Alanna quartet. Nothing for the other Tortall books though.

Who is Beka going to end up with? Well, there seems to be only one choice in this book, and that’s Rosto. He is pretty obviously destined to be the next Rogue (king of all the rogues in Tortall), and he flirts quite often with Beka. She seems interested, but doesn’t want to get involved because of dedication to her job (Major traces of Alanna there) and moral conflicts about his job (Hmm… Again, Alanna).

I think he’s adorable, and they’d be adorable together. There are plenty of reasons why it’s going to be those two. And it’s not just the romantic in me wanting Beka to have someone, we know she has to have descendents, as is made clear at the beginning of the book by Eleni Cooper telling little George about her.

So we know she has to get married/have a baby with someone. This someone must also either not have a last name (Which Rosto does not) or she must not marry/end up with him, because her last name is Cooper, as is Eleni and George. Now, Eleni keeps the name Cooper because she does not seem to know George’s father. She spent one night with him (I don’t remember if George’s father is talked about in the Alanna books or not). And Beka gets her name from her father, who we can assume her mother was married to, as Cooper is her last name and the last name of all of Beka’s siblings (thought it seems he died when her youngest brother was a baby). So Beka cannot marry someone who has a family name. That seems to rule out everyone in the book, but Rosto. Especially since she (Beka) makes a point of mentioning that Rosto has no last name.

Of course her love interest might not be in this book, but that isn’t Pierce’s usual style, so we will discount that argument for now.

So why all the speculation? Why does this bother me?

Because at the beginning of the book, Eleni Cooper is telling little George about his great Provost’s Guard ancestor to deter him from a life of crime. If Beka ends up with the Rogue, then either Eleni does not know this, or is planning to omit that from the tale. Of course, this could also be an indication that at some point in the books, Rosto will go legit, probably before Beka and him actually start a relationship.

That also bring into question, how are we reading Beka’s diary? I don’t mind the diary format, but at the very beginning there is also excerpt from three other diaries. That makes me question how “I” got to be reading Beka’s. The assumption to me would be that Eleni has all these diaries, and is passing them on to George. But again, if she is trying to deter him from a life of crime, than I’m not sure this is the right story to tell him.

I’m curious to see where these books are headed. I enjoyed Terrier a great deal, and can’t wait to read Bloodhound which is scheduled to come out October 2008.

Edit - Tammy was in a car accident and thus Bloodhound’s release date has been moved back to Spring 2009. Here is her post on it.
Also, here is a bit about the plot and how its not exactly coming together.

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