Line #29 Literature/BekaCooper


1	[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/coverbeka_7293.png]]
2	-> ''"The Lower City is mine. Its people are mine. If I find them that's doing all this kidnapping and murdering, they'd best pray for mercy, because once I get my teeth in 'em, I will NEVER let them go." ''
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4	The fifth series — but chronologically, the first — in Tamora Pierce's Literature/TortallUniverse. In an effort to make him give up his thieving ways, [[FramingDevice Eleni Cooper gives her young son George the journals of a famous ancestor]]: Rebekah Cooper, an officer in Corus' nascent police force. Known as "Dogs", they did their best to keep the peace, often walking a fine line between lawkeeper and outlaw. The series follows Beka from her entry onto the force as a trainee through a tumultuous period in the country's history. Rather than sorcerers and kings, Beka's enemies are slumlords and counterfeiters. With the ability to hear the souls of the dead, Beka swears to protect the common people of her city from those who try to victimize them.
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6	The ''Beka Cooper'' books are the longest of any of Tamora Pierce's works and the first story to be written as a trilogy. It is also the first book to feature the commoner side of Tortall life as the main character in both setting and people, which is much darker and messier than the palace.
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8	A list of characters can be found [[Characters/TortallUniverse here]].
9
10	The trilogy has three books:
11	* ''Terrier''
12	* ''Bloodhound''
13	* ''Mastiff''
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15	----
16	!!Tropes:
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18	* AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: The final showdown in ''Bloodhound'' takes place in one of the {{Justified}} type that had walkways along the waste canals for workers. It's also flushed out regularly by Port Caynn's tides, which is happening during the fight. It's as disgusting as it sounds.
19	* AbusiveParents: In ''Terrier'', Orva Ashmiller, drunkard and drug addict. Her introductory scene is her threatening to cut off her children's heads, and throwing a jug at her husband's face. Also, [[spoiler:Deirdry Noll. She hits Gemma and her thug of a son Yates is openly terrified of her. Possibly why her ''other'' sons are so far from home]].
20	* ActionGirl: Numerous apart from Beka herself, as the police force includes male and female members.
21	** Special mention should go to the Watch Commander, Ahuda. Even coves in other cities are in awe of her!
22	* ActionPet: Achoo and Pounce, both of whom attack enemies if needed. Note that while Achoo is a trained sniffer dog, ''Pounce'' is a ''cat''. [[spoiler:He's a constellation, true, but it still surprises folks.]]
23	* AllFirstPersonNarratorsWriteLikeNovelists: Thanks to the FramingDevice of the journals. It's not too ridiculous since she's usually recounting events on the same day they occurred (and there are a few entries she explicitly puts off for another time). However, there are times where she's writing from a week or more later, still with [[InfallibleNarrator perfect recall]] and an appropriate eye for wordplay and drama. ''Mastiff'' gives this the HandWave of a "memory palace".
24	** Justified by the explanation at the beginning of ''Terrier'' that the entire ''point'' of Beka's keeping a journal is to strengthen her memory for writing reports and giving testimony. Her journal writing helps her memory so that by the time of ''Mastiff'' her memory is good enough for tricks like the "memory palace". Working toward perfect, orderly recall is why her books exist in-verse, reiterated in ''Bloodhound'' when she starts her second journal because her reports are suffering without the practice of journal writing.
25	* AlphaBitch: In ''Mastiff'', [[spoiler:Dolsa Silkweb, a powerful (but disgustingly snobbish) mage who traps the protagonists during their chase.]] She brainwashes a captive to love her because she thinks she deserves it, and goes on a rant about how mages are above common people and the mere ''idea'' that [[spoiler:they could be taxed]] is borderline blasphemous.
26	* AmbiguousGender: The [[DontFearTheReaper Black God]] pushes his hood back and shows Beka his face in a sign of favor. She can't remember the details while writing about it, but she says the god could have been a woman, and continues calling him "he" because he didn't correct her.
27	* AmbitionIsEvil: Pearl in ''Bloodhound''. She doesn't care if [[spoiler: her counterfeit money]] will ruin an entire kingdom; she just wants to be richer than anyone else.
28	* AnimalTalk: Sort of. Beka isn't actually talking to the pigeons, but the souls that ride on them, though she does actually address the pigeons at points. On the other hand, Pounce seems able to make himself understood to animals the same as humans, though he's still limited to some extent by their own ability to understand, especially particularly singleminded creatures like Achoo.
29	* ArtisticLicenseEconomics: Averted in ''Bloodhound''. The main plot revolves around a counterfeiting ring that threatens to utterly ruin Tortall's economy via runaway inflation. One of the people behind the plot fully understood this potential impact, and had ruining the economy as a goal (the other, more short-sighted conspirator just wanted to get really rich, and is called out at one point for the stupidity of this plan).
30	* AutomatonHorses: Subverted in ''Mastiff''. Beka is miffed when Sabine's horses are added to the Hunt because she thinks they'll ''slow them down'', warhorses being heavier and slower than most riding mounts. Turns out they're faster than most warhorses, but the hunt still has to keep to their speed. Comes up at other points too, like Beka ruefully noting that most horses take poorly to having new people climb into their saddles, and horses stumbling and falling while running in the dark, or going lame after running over loose stones, or fleeing battle and needing to be tracked down. Sabine's warhorses have been trained to protect her and her things — they have a distressing enthusiasm for aiming kicks at an enemy's head — but are worked up for a while after a fight, and have to be taught who Sabine's friends are so they won't be too suspicious of them.
31	* BadHabits: In ''Bloodhound'', Beka disguises herself as a priestess of the Black God while on the run from both the Rogue ''and'' Lord Lionel. Since she works for him despite not being a priestess, she points out that she ''does'' have a legitimate right to the vestments.
32	* BallsOfSteel: It's not uncommon for male Dogs and Rats to wear codpieces, since nobody fights "fair". But Goodwin still takes down a mugger wearing a cheap one — it ''crumples'' when she kicks him.
33	* BraidsOfAction: Reconstructed. Beka notes that long hair is [[ByTheHair easy to grab]] in a fight, hence why most fighters keep it short. However, Beka braids a spiked strap into her hair so those that grab her braid will regret it, and it's apparently a common enough practice that most don't try it.
34	* BuffySpeak: The use of slang is much heavier than the other Tortall series; presumably it all went out of fashion by the present time. (That, or the nobility, who have been the focus of most of the previous books, don't use as much slang; George does say 'cove' sometimes in ''Literature/SongOfTheLioness''.)
35	* ByTheHair: Beka braids a spiked strap into her hair just in case anyone tries this on her.
36	* CallForward: Numerous. The [[Literature/SongOfTheLioness Dancing Dove]] is built in this series, Beka meets one of Alanna's ancestors and goes to Port Caynn, and numerous noble names (Naxen, Haryse, etc) appear. The first Lord Provost is mentioned to have been a Padraig haMinch, who has an identically-named descendant in ''Literature/ProtectorOfTheSmall''.
37	* CharacterTitle: The trilogy as a whole is named after protagonist Beka Cooper.
38	* ChildProdigy: Prince Gareth in ''Mastiff'' is far more articulate and intelligent than Beka thinks a four year old should be. He can already read and write and think about some ramifications of the future. Of course, as the ''heir to the throne'' he's been the beneficiary of a degree of attention, favor, and tutelage that Beka, who grew up in grinding poverty, is completely unfamiliar with, plus the circumstances in which she encounters him have put him in a [[TroubledChild very serious state of mind]], but he does say that his tutors claim he scares them.
39	* ChekhovsGunman: Queen Jessamine is mentioned as King Roger's new bride in ''Terrier'' in a sentence or two. It turns out that she's responsible for the improved management of the kingdom, since her weird habit of ''actually being a responsible monarch'' inspires her husband to do the same. We learn this when she appears at the beginning of ''Mastiff'', and that it's also caused a lot of resentment among the ministers and nobles.
40	* {{Chickification}}: The Cult of the Gentle Mother, first mentioned in ''Bloodhound'' and shown in ''Mastiff'', is doing this InUniverse to the Great Mother Goddess. Beka and Lady Sabine think it's absolutely ridiculous. WordOfGod has it that before their influence waned, the Gentle Mother cult was responsible for bringing about the end to women being allowed to train as knights.
41	* ChurchMilitant: The Goddess' "warrior mots with sickles" are threatened against the lecherous Fulk when Goodwin notices him harrassing Beka. They finally appear in person in ''Bloodhound'', helping fight colemongering Rats and flirting outrageously with Ersken.
42	* ConnectTheDeaths: In ''Terrier'', Beka maps out the Shadow Snake kidnappings on a map of the Lower City because she knows that Lord Gershom does the same with big cases, in order to find a connection.
43	* ContinuityDrift: The limits of Beka's powers seem to shift between ''Terrier'' and ''Bloodhound''. In ''Terrier'', despite multiple attempts, she cannot seem to convince the ghosts she talks to to so much as give her their name — they ignore her [[spoiler:to the point that the only time one actually responds in the book it isn't even to Beka but a murdered child's spirit to his mother, Tansy, which astonishes her]]. By ''Bloodhound'' she can have conversations with the ghosts and ask questions of them in the manner you would do so to an alive witness, though she has to remain calm or scare the ghosts. Her powers could have simply developed over the TimeSkip between books — ''Terrier'' is part of the journal she kept as a Puppy, which probably continued after the events of this book.
44	* ContinuitySnarl: ''Mastiff'' involves a town and fief called Queensgrace on the Great Road North. By the end of the book, the count and countess have been arrested for their role in a treasonous plot, and the fief is renamed Princehold and awarded to Lady Sabine. However, in ''[[Literature/ProtectorOfTheSmall Lady Knight]]'', set two hundred years later but published a decade earlier, the army Kel is travelling north with stops at a town on the Great Road North called Queensgrace (this is where Kel meets Tobe). Given the scandal attached to the name, it seems a bit odd there'd be ''another'' town by that name on the same road.
45	* CosmicPlaything: Unlike others in the series, Beka doesn't mind serving the Black God of Death, since he values the souls of the dead far more than the other gods seem to value the souls of the ''living'', and doesn't ask things of her so much as approve of the things she already wants to do. She doesn't like the idea of any other gods being aware of and meddling with her though, and once lists examples of the chosen of the gods who met very sticky ends.
46	* CounterfeitCash: They're called "coles" in Tortall slang. Due to the threat they present to the economy, colesmiths (counterfeiters) are given serious punishment. Usually they show up in isolation, made in small batches by few people. The main problem of ''Bloodhound'' is that a ''flood'' of coles has suddenly appeared being minted en masse, unbalancing the local economy.
47	* DaChief: Ahuda. In her own words, "In this kennel, I am queen bitch."
48	* DarkerAndEdgier: The [[Literature/SongOfTheLioness earliest Tortall novels]] were very [[BlackAndWhiteMorality clearcut in morality]], and those that followed became more complex and uncertain. Beka, as a commoner who lives and works in the lower city, lives in a much tougher, grittier, and dirtier world than any of the others, including Arram in the later-written ''[[Literature/TheNumairChronicles Tempests and Slaughter]]''.
49	* DarkIsNotEvil: One of the three main gods in Tortall is the Black God, who is in charge of death. [[DontFearTheReaper He is said to be the kindest and most merciful of the three]], and in ''Mastiff'' [[spoiler:the god himself calls Beka his finest priestess and takes care of a large number of dead bodies so that she and her friends don't have to either lose time doing it themselves or risk Beka breaking down over leaving them for the scavengers.]]
50	* DatingCatwoman: Dogs have Rat friends and vice-versa. Ersken, a Dog, dates Kora, a Rat, for most of the trilogy. For similar reasons, while she counts him among her closest friends, Beka adamantly refuses to accept Rosto's romantic advances.
51	* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Okha, the trans woman from ''Bloodhound'', is always referred to with male pronouns even by sympathetic characters, and it's treated as a shame and a cruelty that she was born this way. It's also hinted that her parents threw her out for being transgender.
52	* {{Determinator}}: Beka. It's where she gets her "Terrier" nickname.
53	-->'''Beka Cooper:''' The Lower City is mine, its people are mine. If I find them that's doing all this kidnapping and murdering, they'd best pray for mercy, because once I get my teeth in 'em, I will ''never'' let them go.
54	* DirtyCop: The Provost's Guard's definition of "dirty" is a bit looser than our modern one (taking kickbacks in "Happy Bags" is a well known and accepted practice for even good cops), but as Beka eventually discovers, a large percent of the Guards of Port Caynn are completely corrupt. Pierce notes in the appendix that policing is still being codified, so most Dogs are making it up as they go.
55	** In fact, Beka's early unwillingness to take bribes is frowned upon as it is likely to lead her being targeted.
56	** One of Beka's partners took a bribe to ignore murder. She arrested him.
57	** In her early years Goodwin was a "loose Dog" who took gold to ignore murder, and almost died when the murderers decided to make extra sure she wouldn't talk.
58	* DomesticAbuse:
59	** Beka's mother had some abusive boyfriends. The reason Beka got the attention of Lord Gershom in the first place was because she was tracking the one who'd beaten and robbed Ilony.
60	** Orva Ashmiller is introduced throwing a pot at her husband Jack's face.
61	** Yates Noll beats his sister Gemma, and she implies that her married sisters get worse from their husbands.
62	** Beka herself appears to have been on the receiving end of this with regards to her fiancé Holborn. She specifically mentions that he used to yell and emotionally blackmail her, and judging by the questions she poses to Farmer (which boils down to, "Do you throw things when you get angry?") he may have physically abused her as well.
63	* DoubleStandardAbuseFemaleOnMale: Harshly averted in ''Terrier'' when the first person Beka arrests is a woman who was beating her children and husband, throwing heavy things at them, and threatening them with a knife. The husband is never ridiculed, the case is treated seriously in the courts, and the woman is given the recommended highest sentence of hard labor outside the city limits (albeit as much for the capital crime of drawing a blade on a Dog).
64	* DirtyCoward: Sir Lionel in ''Bloodhound''. He has no will to stand up to Pearl at all and even tries to arrest Beka when she tells him that [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech he knows darn well who the colemonger is and if he wasn't such a coward, he could have stopped her long ago.]] It's mentioned that he wasn't always this way, though, and it took Pearl threatening his family to break him.
65	* DisproportionateRetribution: The villains of all three books tend to this.
66	** ''Terrier'': You think your fellow Lower City denizens are giving themselves airs when they have a nice trinket? Just ransom and murder their children, that'll learn 'em.
67	** ''Bloodhound'': [[spoiler:You were dishonorably discharged after years of devoted military service for hitting TheNeidermeyer?]] ''Ruin the nation's economy.''
68	** ''Mastiff'': [[spoiler:Some rather self-important mages decided they didn't want to be taxed so the common folk wouldn't be so strapped.]] In response, they kidnap the king's son with plans to kill him, kill dozens of others along the way for barely any reason at all, and attempt to overthrow the government.
69	* DistantFinale: The third book ends with George's thoughts on his "legendary ancestress"; it's revealed that he takes the family shrine's statuette of her along with him on big jobs, just to hack off her spirit. [[spoiler:Then a certain cat edits his memory to remove all oddities related to "Pounce" so George won't be weirded out by Faithful.]]
70	* {{Doorstopper}}: Easily the longest books Pierce has ever written.
71	* DrinkingOnDuty: Otelia is drunk during her watch on Beltane. [[spoiler:This is one of the things that leads to the death of Verene and Rollo.]]
72	* TheDungAges: The Lower City is a lot dirtier and smellier than the settings of the other Tortall books; Beka points out more than once the "scummer" all over the streets and in the gutters; good sanitation is warning your neighbors before you dump the chamberpot out of the window. But it's mainly a consequence of the area being so poor--wealthier districts are noted as being much cleaner.
73	* EvilMatriarch: We find out in ''Terrier'' that [[spoiler:Deirdry Noll is really this for Yates and Gemma]].
74	* EvenEvilHasStandards: Pearl in ''Bloodhound''. She's a murderous rogue who doesn't care for anyone's lives but her own, and does none of the helpful parts of a Rogue's job. But she cannot stand people who abuse animals, and says that it's cowardly to beat a creature that can't speak out about it.
75	* EvilVersusEvil: In ''Terrier'', a serial child-killing extortionist targets the family of Ammon "Crookshank" Lofts, an absolutely vile slumlord who's responsible for the book's other serial murder case. The Dogs take a while to pursue the case because nobody cares if Crookshank is hurt.
76	* ExtraordinaryWorldOrdinaryProblems: The plot of the second book revolves entirely around an investigation into a a counterfeit coin operation that's treated with just as much gravity as previous series' conflicts around gods, {{Mystical Plague}}s, and necromantic war machines. Flooding the kingdom with fake money would still severely damage the economy, magic or no magic.
77	* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler:Tunstall turns traitor in ''Mastiff''.]]
78	* FantasticDrug: "Hotblood wine", which is wine spiked with amphetamine-like herbs. Dreamrose is also mentioned.
79	* {{Foreshadowing}}:
80	** Otelia and Rollo — Verene's training partners — say that Goodwin and Tunstall intentionally make other Dogs look bad basically by doing the job thoroughly. Later, Otelia suggests Beka do work that Otelia could do herself and is told off for it. [[spoiler:In hindsight, it's not that surprising that they got Verene killed on duty, and Beka's friends wonder how they even got assigned a Puppy in the first place.]]
81	** There are a few cases of counterfeit coins, or "coles", in ''Terrier'' — a Dog is said to have let coles into the Happy Bag and Cooper arrests a cove trying to exchange counterfeit silver coins. During the second, Goodwin gives him a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech in which she says that enough coles ruin the economy. The plot of ''Bloodhound'' comes about because a major counterfeiting ring threatens to totally destabilize the economy of Port Caynn, and by extension, Corus.
82	** Tunstall is increasingly DentedIron — his injuries are resistant to healing and AcheyScars plague him. Also, his relationship with [[UptownGirl Lady Sabine]] is a BerserkButton. [[spoiler:He ends up betraying the realm in exchange for a noble title so he can still be useful and "worthy" of her.]]
83	* FourthDateMarriage: [[spoiler:Beka and Farmer decide to get married near the end of their Hunt. It was a pretty intense month, all right? Beka in general seems willing to move fast — bedding Dale after just a few days of getting to know him, and daydreaming about their future; agreeing to marry Holbern after an exciting arrest and an adrenaline-filled quickie in an alley.]]
84	* FramingDevice: The epilogue of ''Mastiff'' reveals that Eleni had George read Beka's journals because she was trying to dissuade him from becoming a thief.
85	* GenerationXerox: Averted.
86	** The entire series is about [[LovableRogue George Cooper's]] ancestor — a stalwart police officer, though one that's flexible enough that, given his own honorable tendencies, they probably would have got on all right.
87	** Lionel of Trebond, the head of the Port Caynn guard and Alanna's ancestor, is a sexist who subscribes to a cult that thinks women have "tender souls" and aren't cut out for violence. [[spoiler:He's also far too much of a wimp to deal with the Rogue.]]
88	** Some of the royals here have the same names as royals and royal cousins in ''Literature/SongOfTheLioness''. King Roger is not an evil, calculating bastard like that other Roger, and he's also a redhead. The TallDarkAndHandsome gene hadn't yet entered the Conté line. Prince Gareth... well, he's four and ''might'' grow up to be something like the future Gareths (Reserved training master Gareth the Elder, or scholarly Gareth the Younger), but he seems to have a harder edge suggested in ''Literature/TortallASpysGuide''. And Prince Baird isn't a dry-witted self-effacing Healer [[spoiler: but complicit in a plot to kill Gareth and Roger and take the throne himself]].
89	* GenreShift: Not from fantasy, of course, but the setting changes drastically from the royal/noble circles occupied by Alanna, Daine, Kel, and Aly; this is the first time we really see how commoners in Tortall live day-to-day.[[note]]Daine technically is a commoner, but her wild magic puts her in the king's inner circle.[[/note]] Being about a young police officer, the series also naturally takes a crime novel format, as well as being written in first person.
90	* GentlemanThief: Rosto the Piper and his friends.
91	* GettingTheBoot: ''Not'' a comedic version. Lord Gershom bodily throws Hilyard out of the graveyard when Hilyard starts spewing bile about the Provost's Guard [[spoiler:at Verene and Rollo's funeral]] in ''Terrier''.
92	* GodWasMyCopilot: Pounce. Kora actually cottons on to his true identity, noticing that the Cat constellation is presently missing. [[spoiler:He's clearly the same being as Faithful, although this is only explicitly stated in ''Mastiff''.]]
93	* HairOfGoldHeartOfGold: This is the closest Pierce gets to this trope in Tortall, describing Beka's hair as dark blonde.
94	* HeadInTheSandManagement: Sir Lionel thinks that if he sweeps the counterfeit problem far enough under the rug, it will go away, because he's too scared to confront Pearl and stop the problem.
95	* HeatWave: There's a bad one in the start of ''Bloodhound'', during which a riot breaks out over the rising price of bread.
96	* HeroicBastard: Nestor is a minor character version of this. Despite being from "the wrong side of the sheet", he manages to become a Dog through his close friendship with his older cousin, the Lord Provost.
97	* HiddenVillain:
98	** The Shadow Snake from ''Terrier'', [[spoiler:a.k.a. Deirdry Noll, owner of one of the Lower City's most popular bakeries]].
99	** One of the masterminds of the counterfeiting plot in ''Bloodhound'' is [[spoiler:Hanse Remy, who wants to hurt Tortall as much as he can after his years of military service ended when he hit his [[TheNeidermeyer Neidermeyer]] of an officer]]. Beka knew he was ''involved'', granted, but not the depth of it.
100	* HideYourLesbians: Averted in ''Bloodhound'' with a queer couple as major characters, one of whom is a transgender singer.
101	* HorsingAround: Lady Sabine's horses Drummer and Steady. In addition to normal warhorse kick-the-enemy training they are, according to Beka, "[[YourHeadASplode truly enthusiastic when it comes to the head]]". Sabine trained them to do that to cut down on the harassment encountered while being a female knight, but Drummer takes his job ''extra''-seriously — apparently if she hadn't introduced Tunstall as a friend, Drummer might have attacked him the first time he saw them hug. [[spoiler: Not entirely surprising that Pounce later confirms Farmer's suspicion that the Macayhills are horse mages, with Sabine being particularly powerful.]]
102	* {{Hypocrite}}:
103	** In ''Bloodhound'', Beka is nearly killed by two men who wanted to get back at her for arresting their brother. Needless to say, when they come back to Beka as pigeons, they're not pleased about having been killed and proclaim that they would have finished the job had they had the chance.
104	** Rosto is said to be very annoyed that Beka ended up with another man while on her assignment while he's been bedding dozens of women himself.
105	* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: Each book in the series is the name of a type of dog, and a OneWordTitle, tying in with the Provost's Guard being known as the "Provost's Dogs".
106	* IdiotBall: There are a few times when Beka struggles to remember some fine point of detail (such as the pendant design in ''Terrier'') but does not go back over her journal entries because doing so would cause her to make much more progress on the case than the plot pacing could handle--even though her journal is explicitly a memory aid and she relies on it enough that she's scolded for sloppy reports when she slacks off on it.
107	* InsigniaRipoffRitual: Ahuda does this to a pair of Dogs that laid low during the Bread Riot in ''Bloodhound''. They show up the next day fresh as daisies while literally every one of their comrades has at the ''least'' a black eye.
108	* InternalReveal: Longtime readers of Tortall will immediately recognize that Pounce is the same being as Faithful from ''Song of the Lioness''. It is only openly stated during the DistantFinale when he edits George Cooper's memory so that he won't make the connection between his ancestor's feline companion and Alanna's.
109	* ItsAllAboutMe:
110	** The Shadow Snake. [[spoiler:Deirdry Noll ruthlessly victimizes other poor families who have the good luck or ability to get themselves ''one'' nice thing because she thinks she deserves it more than they do.]]
111	** The villains of ''Mastiff''. [[spoiler: A number of very powerful mages lend their support and magic to a treasonous attempt at regicide. Why? Because the King is trying to make them work for the public and putting a sales tax on spell components.]] They easily get a number of nobles in on the plot because the King is making it harder for them to exploit the commoners on their land.
112	* ItGetsEasier: Touched on in ''Bloodhound'' where Beka overhears cage Dog Shales telling a coworker that she's started hitting her child since becoming a torturer.
113	* JackBauerInterrogationTechnique: This is accepted practice by Dogs (see PoliceBrutality below), although how well it does works varies. Still, we have plenty of scenes where Tunstall thumps someone's head on the floor to get more information out of them and suchlike.
114	* JerkassHasAPoint: [[spoiler:Mistress Noll's motive in ''Terrier'' is that she wanted to escape the hellhole slum she was living on in a way that wouldn't end with her immobile from the back-breaking labour she'd need to do, and Tansy's childhood thefts meant a lot ''more'' work and lost money for her.]] Still, that doesn't in the least justify the murder of children.
115	* JobTitle: The books are named ''Terrier'', ''Mastiff'', and ''Bloodhound'', all being references to Beka being a "Provost's Dog".
116	* KarmaHoudini: Nomalla in ''Mastiff'' is either this or the inverse, depending. The degree of her complicity in the attempted coup isn't known, though she wasn't aware that [[spoiler: Prince Gareth had been abducted and MadeASlave]]. When Beka and company are captured she helps them to escape, turning on her house at basically ''the'' last moment before loyal armies arrive and attack the castle. The rest of Nomalla's family is executed as traitors. Nomalla is sorry that her father's actions have ruined their house and that [[spoiler:the prince]] was so horribly abused, and believes it's a matter of honor for her to turn, but she's also haughty and arrogant and doesn't say anything one way or another about the other damage the coup causes. Nomalla does not get a reward for [[spoiler: helping to rescue the prince]], or rather, she gets to keep her life and is [[ReassignedToAntarctica relocated to the Scanran border]] where Gershom believes that she'll earn redemption.
117	* KickTheDog: Subverted in ''Bloodhound''. [[spoiler:Pearl Skinner is a dog person and openly scorns people who abuse dogs.]]
118	* KickedUpstairs: This happened to Ahuda after years as a street Dog.
119	* LadykillerInLove: "Randy Roger" didn't so much as look at another woman funny after his marriage to Jessamine.
120	* LadyOfWar: Lady Sabine, a formidable knight.
121	* LaserGuidedAmnesia: It's revealed that [[spoiler:Pounce/Faithful]] did this to [[spoiler:George]] so that he wouldn't remember that [[spoiler:Beka's cat had purple eyes, just like Alanna's.]]
122	* LittleMissConArtist: Beka stops a pickpocketing team who uses a little girl running into the street as a distraction while her partner takes the purse.
123	* LoveMakesYouEvil: [[spoiler:In ''Mastiff'', Tunstall turns traitor because he wants to be good enough for Lady Sabine (i.e. class-wise) and the villain offers him a noble title. She's not happy about this.]]
124	* LoveableRogue: Rosto, Kora, and Aniki, although [[spoiler:only Rosto is ''The'' Rogue. The former Corus Rogue was decidely ''un''loveable.]]
125	* LoveTriangle: Although the men never meet each other, Rosto is not happy to hear that Beka found a boyfriend while she was in Port Caynn, and several times throughout the book she compares Rosto and Dale, with mixed feelings.
126	* MamaBear: Although many of the major characters express disgust and dismay at child slavery and child-killings, often mentioning that child killers are given the most brutal of sentences and that those that get away are often taken down by vigilantes, that doesn't stop some women from ignoring their maternal instinct. Orva Ashmiller has physically hurt her children, and, although she whines about them being taken away from her, she's more focused on blaming Beka than on the kids. One other woman attempted to use the Shadow Snake to hide the fact that she sold her child into slavery. Another smothered her child to death because her new lover didn't want to live with children. [[spoiler:The woman responsible for starting and leading the Shadow Snake killings was, herself, a mother.]] Her motivation? ''Self-entitlement.'' [[spoiler:She felt that she deserved the nice things she ransomed more than those she took them from.]] This is in exchange for ''[[WouldHurtAChild the lives of children!]]''
127	* MauveShirt: [[spoiler:Verene in ''Terrier''. She's another Puppy, one of Beka's friends, but ends up getting killed in the line of duty.]]
128	* MedievalStasis: Tortall averts this generally, but also this book takes place a couple of centuries before any of the other books, and the country is ''so different'' in a way that can't purely be chalked up to Beka being the least elevated protagonist. Mostly the difference is cultural. Beka experiences a staggering degree of misogyny, but the Cult of the Gentle Mother aside women are far more integrated into society, the violent parts included, than in other books.
129	* MisterMuffykins: The Butterfly Pups in ''Mastiff'', bred at Queensgrace to be ladies' lapdogs. They have some useful qualities too.
130	* MustLetThemGetAway: The second type in ''Bloodhound''. A noble is convicted of a crime, but is given a lesser sentence due to his family connections.
131	* NeverMyFault: Orva Ashmiller blames Beka for hobbling her and getting her sent to a convict work farm. This was after Beka and her Dogs were drawn to the scene by Orva threatening violence against her family, and once they were there, Ovra struck Goodwin with a knife, an action that carries a heavy sentence.
132	* NiceGirl: Mistress Catfoot in ''Mastiff'' is one of the rare mages who are both incredibly powerful and genuinely nice people. She doesn't care for money or status, and generally keeps to herself, but will gladly go out of the way to help the royal family and, by extension, Beka's party of Dogs, for several reasons: the King and Queen don't tax the poor, they're loving parents, [[spoiler: their son is missing and magically being used against them]], and helping them could potentially [[spoiler:prevent a full-scale civil war.]]
133	-->'''Sir Tullus:''' If she cares nothing for money or status, why would she help Their Majesties?\
134	'''Farmer:''' [[MamaBear She loves children,]] and she likes me. ''[...]'' She wouldn't have come if His Majesty were one of those warlike kings, or of [[spoiler: civil war]] were not a possible outcome of all of this.
135	* NiceToTheWaiter: Beka has a few moments in ''Bloodhound'' where she intentionally leaves food for the young girl who is spying on her for the Court of the Rogue, since she knows that the girl probably is not well fed and Beka used to be in a similar situation herself. [[spoiler: While the girl saw that Beka was trying to get on her good side and tells her it's not enough, she still later helps her escape and find what she needs to take the Rogue in.]]
136	* NoodleIncident: Pearl makes several references to Nestor knowing full well what happens to people who try to take her down. Whatever she's referring to goes unexplained, but we're given enough to know that she's vindictive as all hell and employs a very efficient assassin.
137	* NoOntologicalInertia: Mage marks in ''Terrier''. They're used to kill the marked person should they talk to the police, but if the mage dies, the marks lose their power.
138	* NotSoDifferentRemark: It's noted more than once that the line between police and criminals is thin, and it's not unusual for them to be friends with each other, so long as they're careful not to force the other to interfere with their respective jobs.
139	* ObstructiveBureaucrat: Sir Lionel of Trebond. He's very reluctant to do much police work at ''all'' after his family was threatened by Pearl Skinner.
140	* OccultBlueEyes: Beka's ice blue eyes creep people out. Several characters mention it, and Beka herself notes it whenever she sees someone with the same. When she's really mad, people call the glare she gives the "ghost eyes" and describe it as putting the chill of the grave into you.
141	* OffWithHisHead: Happens at the end of ''Mastiff'' to [[spoiler:Prince Baird, for his complicity in the plot against his brother]].
142	* OneParagraphChapter: Two. In one, our protagonist/journal-keeper has been awake far too long and can't stay up long enough to write down everything in her journal. In the other, she's just drunk.
143	* OneSteveLimit: In ''Bloodhound'', the book acts like we're supposed to be surprised that a guy named Hanse that Beka knows is the same Hanse that we've heard is involved with the coles. Beka complains that there are a lot of people named "Hanse" around, even multiple Dogs working her shift.
144	* OneWordTitle: The books are named ''Terrier'', ''Mastiff'' and ''Bloodhound'', all being references to Beka being a Provost's Dog.
145	* OnlyBadGuysCallTheirLawyers: In the second book, Beka demonstrates a cop's bias against advocates, believing that they keep Dogs from bringing in criminals, and is quite disgruntled when a man she caught turns out to be part of a guild and uses the services of that guild's advocate. That said, even she admits that they're necessary for when Dogs get something wrong. [[spoiler: And rightfully so: in a subversion, the man really was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and had nothing to do with the counterfeit ring.]]
146	* PaintingTheMedium: The prologue chapters have different fonts to show that they're diary entries from three people. They're also informal fonts, although Beka's font is a standard serif. Some pages also have inkstains or pawprints on them.
147	* PassedInTheirSleep: This is how [[spoiler:Tunstall]] dies in the third book. After a long and arduous battle in the cold and rain, Beka can't make herself kill him and ties him up for proper capture instead, even while thinking this is a CruelMercy. When she goes to give him some food the next day, she can't wake him and finds his body locked in rigor mortis — cold and shock did him in overnight.
148	* PetTheDog: In ''Bloodhound'', Pearl Skinner, the Rogue of Port Caynn, gets a literal PetTheDog moment with Beka's hound Achoo. Beka [[LampshadeHanging comments that knowing that even someone like her has some nice spots makes plotting against her harder]].
149	* PoliceAreUseless: The Night Watch is largely made up of the worst Dogs — lazy, particularly corrupt, drunk, what-have-you. When Goodwin, Tunstall, and Beka get caught up in a bar brawl during a shift change, the Night Watch Dogs make sure to show up ''after'' it's over. They only got out because Lady Sabine happened to be there.
150	* PoliceBrutality: Dogs are instructed not to hit suspects unless they're ''really sure'' it'll be useful, and Beka herself engages in the practice several times. The "Cage Dogs" in the jails are outright torturers who get bonus pay for their willingness to do the work — we get a scene of them waterboarding a prisoner in ''Bloodhound''.
151	* PoliceProcedural: Although there's not a lot of actual paperwork, Beka details the routines for checking in prisoners, equipment issue, court day, [[BreadEggsMilkSquick bribe collections]], etcetera.
152	* {{Polyamory}}: A low-key version in ''Terrier'', where Rosto is sleeping with Aniki and Kora in the first part of the book, before Kora decides she'd rather be with somebody else. Rosto wants to add Beka too, but between him still sleeping with Aniki and him being a criminal, she refuses. [[spoiler:And keeps refusing.]]
153	* {{Portmantitle}}: The second book in the trilogy is called ''Bloodhound'', a compound word, though certainly in use long before the publication of the book.
154	* PowderKegCrowd: A couple of times. When they [[spoiler:finally find the dead diggers]] near the end of ''Terrier'', Beka is unsettled by how ''quiet'' the crowd is and sure enough, fighting soon breaks out over the heinous evidence of the crime. In ''Bloodhound'', a crowd angry over the rising price of bread quickly turns into a mob that sets the offending shop on fire, among other things.
155	* PutOnABus: Just about every Corus character in ''Mastiff''. Justified in that most of the action takes place in other locations, but it's still a bit jarring when important characters like Goodwin, Rosto (who had major ShipTease with Beka and was expected to be her endgame love interest, though Pierce thinks [[http://tpwords.wordpress.com/2012/07/09/why-bekarosto-wouldnt-last-and-development-of-humanity/ it wouldn't have lasted]]), Ersken, and Kora and Aniki only have a sentence or two devoted to them.
156	* ProlongedPrologue: ''Terrier'' starts with ''three'' prologues in the form of diary entries. One is by [[Literature/SongOfTheLioness Eleni Cooper]] worrying about her son George, one is by Beka's mother Ilony, and the third is by Tunstall. (Since the book is a doorstopper, it's only 2% of the overall book[[note]]15/563[[/note]]).
157	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Beka gives one to Sir Lionel when he makes it clear that he's not going after Pearl, despite having enough power and evidence to do so, because he's afraid of her.
158	* TheRestShallPass: At the climax of ''Mastiff'', [[spoiler:as the Hunt party flees the castle with Gareth in tow, the forces of the conspirators pick them off for individual battles, leaving Beka to finally face the traitor one-on-one.]]
159	* ReverseWhodunnit: Beka and her partners figure out that Crookshank is the one behind the fire opals and mass disappearances early in ''Terrier'', so their main problem is finding the evidence to arrest him; meanwhile, the Shadow Snake is a classic whodunnit. Similar occurs in ''Bloodhound''. They figure out that Pearl is the colemonger halfway through the book, they just need ''evidence'', and to get around Sir Lionel, who's too cowardly to confront her.
160	* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Queen Jessamine, Roger's second wife, was raised to be one of these. She manages to turn "[[IdleRich Randy Roger]]" into one too — he very suddenly takes an interest in what his ministers and tax collectors are actually ''doing'' because he doesn't want to look like an idiot in front of his newlywed wife. Said ministers are... [[{{Understatement}} rather put out]] by this.
161	* SacrificialLamb: In ''Terrier'', [[spoiler:Beka's friend and fellow Puppy, Verene, is killed in a fight when her training partners are drunk.]] Afterwards, Beka notes in her journal the statistic that two out of ten trainees die on the job.
162	* SerialKiller: There are two different cases in ''Terrier''. One is obviously Crookshank, who is murdering the people he hire to mine fire opals to keep the secret. The second is the Shadow Snake, who extorts poor families for their few valuables by kidnapping their children and murdering them if not paid. [[spoiler:It's not until the end that Beka realizes it's Deirdry Noll.]]
163	* SeriesContinuityError: ''Mastiff'' has several.
164	** Beka's estranged sister's name changes from Diona to Dorine.
165	** There's no mention of the house Kora and Ersken were talking about at the end of the last book, with only a brief mention of "Kora's room" still being where it always was.
166	** Beka's brother Nilo is said to be the palace courier rather than Wil.
167	** In the same book, Farmer mentions the team's magic dog tags before he actually makes them.
168	** Possibly the weirdest of all, the dog Snowball is called Snowflake in the first mention of him, literally three pages before it changes.
169	* SheCleansUpNicely: Beka hates the way men treat her just because she's prettied up and not in a Dog uniform, but she gets through it by constantly reminding herself that she's undercover.
170	* SlaveMarket: The main Corus slave market is called the Market of Sorrows. A significant source of its supply is actually Lower City parents selling children they can't afford to feed. By the end of the trilogy [[spoiler:the king decides to end Tortall's participation in the slave trade, it not being essential to the economy and having played a pivotal role in the kidnapping of his son and attempted rebellion by a group of nobles.]]
171	* SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil: The books take place before slavery was outlawed in Tortall. Parents sometimes sell children they can't afford to keep, and any slave trader is likely to have ''kidnapped'' children (which is illegal). ''Mastiff'' in particular focuses on the suffering of slaves and the host of secondary evils that the trade causes [[spoiler:since Prince Gareth is being hidden as a slave. King Roger and Queen Jessamine declare a gradual abolition of slavery as a result.]]
172	* SocialServicesDoesNotExist: No really, [[JustifiedTrope it doesn't]]. When Jack Ashmiller goes missing, his landlord kicks his three children out into the street to beg and Beka takes them in herself to protect them from slavers and the many other evils that can befall street children.
173	* {{Stereotype}}: InUniverse, the Cult of the Gentle Mother, a new version of the Goddess who is rising in popularity at the time which emphasizes roles for women that are so archaically traditional that it's treated as bizarre even by the setting's standards. This doesn't stop Beka and co from taking advantage of it.
174	* SternChase: ''Mastiff'' is one big long one of these, only it's inverted — it's Beka and her dogs who are chasing the people who abducted the child prince.
175	* StrangeCopInAStrangeLand: Beka and Goodwin spend most of ''Bloodhound'' in Port Caynn, where they find the police force and Rogue system completely out of whack. [[spoiler:Beka eventually tells Lord Lionel that he is full of ''scummer'' when he goes into a panic over the thought of arresting Pearl Skinner and is nearly killed as a result.]]
176	* ThievesCant: Residents of the Lower City, where the line between legal and illegal is very thin, have an extensive slang vocabulary, most of which is cobbled together from historical slang ("foist/pickpocket" and "doxy/prostitute", for example). People from [[WrongSideOfTheTracks the Cesspool]] neighborhood have their own subset of slang that is considered to be particularly disgraceful.
177	* ThievesGuild: A major part of the series. The Dogs have regular dealings with them, and there seems to be one in each major city. Although they are criminal headquarters, smart ones will also help the local community by storing up grain and other necessities for sale to people who can't afford legal prices.
178	* TitleDrop: In each book, Beka gets nicknamed the eponymous breed of dog by the end.
179	* TortureAlwaysWorks: Subverted. Torture is what the Provost's Guard uses in questioning only because they have to go through an absurd amount of expense and red tape for easily-available truth spells.
180	* TranslationConvention: Beka's diary is actually written in cipher, as she explains in ''Bloodhound'', to prevent a FridgeLogic moment where we wonder what happens if the diary is stolen in the middle of an investigation.
181	* {{Trilogy}}: In technical terms, it comes in three books. However, each book has a self-contained plot because the major case(s) are solved before The End.
182	* TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior: Beka finds Prince Gareth to be like a little old man in a four-year-old's body much of the time. Some of this is because he's had an upbringing that's utterly foreign to her as a girl from the slums, protected and nurtured and educated extensively and with an eye to making him TheGoodKing one day, so he already has a sense of responsibility and speaks precisely. [[spoiler: Some is because of the abuse and trauma he's suffered and some knowledge of the stakes, as he's somewhat aware not just of his parents being made to feel what happens to him but also a larger context even if he doesn't wholly understand.]]
183	* UnusualEuphemism: Beka's ''sarden'', which, combined with her lower-class slang and Kyprish commands to her dog, can result in some nigh-incomprehensible sentences. There is luckily a guide in the back of the books defining what everything means to make it easier.
184	* VengeanceFeelsEmpty: In ''Bloodhound'', [[spoiler:Hanse's ghost is not sorry at all for trying to ruin Tortall's entire economy, but he does say that it feels very hollow to look at it from death]].
185	* WaterTorture: "The Drink", the term cage Dogs use for waterboarding.
186	%%* WeakButSkilled: Farmer Cape[[spoiler:/Cooper]].
187	* WhipOfDominance: Achoo is famous for being the best guard scent hound in the city but is treated [[BadPeopleAbuseAnimals very cruelly by his handler Ercole Hempstead, who constantly whips her]]. When Pounce and Beka witnessed this one day, they were both horrified and promptly strongarmed Escole into giving Achoo to them instead.
188	* WouldHurtAChild:
189	** Book one mainly revolves around finding the Shadow Snake, a Lower City criminal that abducts children and demands that their parents give up what little of value that they have in exchange for their child's life. If the parent doesn't comply, they find their child dead very quickly. [[KickTheDog If said parent happens to have another child, the Shadow Snake ALWAYS comes back.]]
190	** Towards the end of ''Mastiff'', we find out that [[spoiler:[[TheMole Tunstall]] killed Daeggan and intends to kill Gareth. Gareth is four years old, Daeggan is 8.]]
191

Context Literature / BekaCooper