16-year-old Beka Cooper is a product of the rough-and-tumble Lower City. Having spent the first half of her life in the slums, she is driven by the need to do what is right and see justice done. To that end, she has become a "Puppy," or trainee, in the Provost’s Guard, commonly known as the Provost’s Dogs. These guards serve the King as protectors of the city of Corus. Beka requests an assignment in the notoriously dangerous Lower City, her former home, and becomes the puppy of guards Matthias Tunstall and Clara Goodwin. These teachers are two of the best and toughest "Dogs" in the guard, and they set Beka straight to work, cracking heads and enforcing the law. As a puppy, Beka’s job is to chase down criminals and help bring them to justice; her only weapons are her wooden baton, her wits, and her ability to listen. This latter skill is helped by her magical ability to hear the ghostly whispers of the dead, carried by pigeons and dust spinners. She is also befriended by a supernatural cat named Pounce, and has a few loyal human friends to make life more bearable. As Beka settles into the routine of work in the Provost’s guard she begins to hear rumors of a nefarious criminal called the Shadow Snake.
The Snake kidnaps young children of the Lower City and holds them ransom for unique trinkets and family heirlooms. If the ransom is not paid, the children are either returned dead or are simply never seen again. Beka is outraged that the Shadow Snake has been preying on the city’s poor and unnoticed. And there’s something else. Among the spirits Beka hears are those of adults killed by poison and buried in the basements where they fell. Even though the old neighborhood has always been troublesome, this increase in crime is intolerable to Beka, and she aims to protect it against all odds. As she and her Dogs keep getting stymied in their pursuit of the killers, it is Beka who refuses to give up, pursuing even the smallest clue with the tenacity of a terrier, from which she gets her nickname.
Beka Cooper by Tamora Pierce
Book 1:
Terrier
Book 2:
Bloodhound
Book 3:
Mastiff (due to be published sometime this year)
Ms. Heather's Note: Though Beka Cooper is my favorite, I really enjoyed all of Tamora Pierce's books. Her heroines are strong and courageous and all of her characters are very real. Though the different series' relate to each other, they don't have to be read in order...but it is more fun that way! For a list of all of the books in all of the series, check out her website: http://www.tamora-pierce.com/books.html
Charlie went to bed with a grin, staring at the phone number Beth had written on the back of his hand that afternoon at school. Charlie woke up beaten, burned and cut, strapped to a chair in a room filled with torture devices....a year later. What happened in that year? The police say Charlie killed his best friend, was tried and went to prison only to escape a few months into his sentence. A stranger with a familiar face says Charlie's a Homelander, an American terrorist recruited by Islamic extremists. But Charlie knows he'd never murder anyone, nor would he do anything to hurt the country he loves. But even as he tries to recover his memories he has to also evade capture long enough to uncover - and stop - an assassination plot. Can he make it on time? Or will there be another death on his conscious?
