Tamora Pierce’s Terrier is a detective story, with the main character Beka Cooper and her companions solving the mystery that is plaguing the Lower City the story being told in a series of journal entries by Beka. The main character Beka Cooper is a young recruit into the provost’s guard (called Dogs) and is placed with two senior dogs Tunstall and Goodwin. Beka is pulled into a mystery that is wreaking havoc on the Cesspool (the part of the city she’s been assigned to), and she’ll have to use all of her wits and strength to keep the citizens of the Cesspool safe. Luckily, Beka has some magical assistance from her seemingly magical cat Pounce, and her own innate magical abilities which play a major role in the investigation. Beka’s investigations lead her to make terrifying discoveries, new friends, and enemies with plot twists being plentiful.
With this novel being written in a journal format we get to see what Beka is really thinking which allows the reader to get truly immersed with the character and the world around her. Because of there’s one thing that  Tamora Pierce is good at it’s world building. Pierce creates a lively world in the the characters come alive, and when the Cesspool is described the danger feels almost tangible which allows some amazing suspenseful or depressing scenes where you feel the citizen’s pain. The world building along with the character development truly make this novel fantastic even against its shortcomings. Those shortcomings being the relatively slow story progression at the beginning of the novel and what was for me a disappointing ending; however, these shortcomings are my personal opinions and what I think may be different than what another reader thinks. So do not think ill of this novel because of my opinion.
Every author has a purpose and Pierce’s is quite obvious in this novel, but the theme of this novel is a little harder to pin down. While the purpose is to show the fine line between corruption and lawful action within our own worlds law enforcement shown through the Dogs collecting money to protect homes. With the theme being that passion and determination are keys to success. Beka as a character really shows this theme throughout the entirety of the novel by sticking with her arduous investigation, and having passion for being a Dog along with her determination to get better at what she loves.
To conclude, Tamora Pierce’s Terrier is a fantastic mystery novel with great twists, characters, and world building. Anybody who loves mystery novels will love this novel and for those more adventurous this book is a great way the get into the mystery genre.