Beka Cooper

Beka Cooper is obviously about Beka Cooper. This story takes 200 years prior to Tamora Pierce’s quartet Song of the Lioness. Beka Cooper is a girl who is currently a Puppy, a Dog trainee. Dogs are the current police force of that time. They take care of robbers, murderers, and thugs. During this period, there is someone who is called the Shadow Snake. They demand that a person give over some type of valuable (it differs person to person) and if they don’t the Shadow Snake kidnaps one of that person’s children. They are then given another week to hand over the item. If they do not, the child is killed. There is also another case going on at the same time. There have been several secret murders that have been happening. Beka finds this out by her pigeons. The pigeons carry the ghost of the dead. All of those who have been murdered were miners for Crookshank. They were mining for stones called fire opals, rare and highly valued stones, after a certain period of time, Crookshank would have them killed. Beka has to figure out both of these cases before more are captured and then killed. But with all the unexpected twists, (what exactly is with that two-faced baker?), this will not be easy. This book is beautifully written and the ending is not one you will see…

As always, Tamora Pierce has written an absolutely amazing book. One reason why I loved this book was how well-rounded Beka Cooper was made. She has her talents and flaws. Beka is strong willed, loyal, and stubborn. She is also quick-tempered and has a great fear of speaking in front of people. Her stubbornness could also be counted as a flaw as well as a talent. While Beka does posses a bit of magic, Piece makes sure as to still make Cooper still naive. Her shyness is also a huge flaw as being that shy could potentially burden her once she becomes a Dog. The amount of twists is also quite interesting. As I said before, the ending is not something you expect. Something I like best about this book though, is that there was little to no romance. There was much action in the book, even if it did get a little slow at times, but it would always pick up.

Something that annoys me is that this is told in first-person point of view. Although Pierce does this beautifully, I’ve never really liked books in first person. There are many details that I would’ve liked to have known, but because of the first-person point of view I was not able to. Obviously, it was probably not important to the story is Pierce did not include it, but they intrigue me non the less. At the same time, Piece does a wonderful job on conveying Cooper’s thoughts onto paper and making it seem realistic. Page 524 is one page that I liked the most. Half the page is just a big inkspot. I like that because it shows some realism there, as spilling something (not just ink) could, would, and has happen.

-Tiffany