Terrier (Beka Cooper Series #1) » (Reprint)

Tamora Pierce lives in Syracuse, New York, with her husband, Tim, five cats, two birds, and various freeloading wildlife. Visit her online at www.tamorapierce.com.

The start to a new Tortall trilogy introducing Beka Cooper an amazing young woman who is the medieval equivalent of a police officer and has magical powers.

Beka Cooper is a rookie with the law-enforcing Provost's Guard, and she's been assigned to the Lower City. It's a tough beat that's about to get tougher, as Beka's limited ability to communicate with the dead clues her in to an underworld conspiracy. Someone close to Beka is using dark magic to profit from the Lower City's criminal enterprises and the result is a crime wave the likes of which the Provost's Guard has never seen before.

Publishers Weekly

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.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.