Mastiff (Beka Cooper Series #3)

( 195 )

Overview

The Legend of Beka Cooper gives Tamora Pierce's fans exactly what they want—a smart and savvy heroine making a name for herself on the mean streets of Tortall's Lower City—while offering plenty of appeal for new readers as well.

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Mastiff (Beka Cooper Series #3)

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More About This Book

Overview

The Legend of Beka Cooper gives Tamora Pierce's fans exactly what they want—a smart and savvy heroine making a name for herself on the mean streets of Tortall's Lower City—while offering plenty of appeal for new readers as well.

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Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble

Fan sites have been simmering in anticipation of the third and perhaps final installment of Tamora Pierce's Beka Cooper saga. Three years have passed since the events of xxx and Beka, now a member of the Provost's Guard, must experience the gravest loss she has ever experienced. Within hours of that tragedy, she must embark on a dangerous mission to rescue the young heir to the kingdom. Aided only by Tunstall, her scent-dog Achoo, and a mysterious, powerful mage, she plunges into a case that promises or threatens to change everything. Worth the wait; editor's recommendation.

Kirkus Reviews
Pierce's sturdy policewoman Beka Cooper returns for a triumphant trilogy conclusion. The book opens at the interment of narrator Beka's fiancé, a fellow Dog; some three years have passed since the events of Bloodhound (2009). Far from being grief stricken, Beka feels a guilty relief at the release. She finds the prospect of a high-stakes Hunt with partner Tunstall positively invigorating, although the political stability of Tortall hinges on its success: The young heir to the throne has been kidnapped. Beka and Tunstall--and her animal companions, the supernatural cat Pounce and scent hound Achoo--are joined by Tunstall's lover, the lady knight Sabine, and a Dog mage, Farmer Cape. Farmer plays the fool, but Beka and company soon realize his powers and intellect far exceed those of the typical Kennel mage--a good thing, too, because Tortall's magical community appears to be allied against the king. Pierce has long been lauded for her kickass heroines, and in Beka she has created her most compelling, complicated character. The plainspoken Beka's moral compass never wavers, but there's believably human confusion at her core. Pierce's gutsiest move is starting with Beka's failed romance--thereby providing a welcome reality check for readers who have been peddled the eternal-first-love bill of goods from every direction. An involving police procedural wrapped in fantasy clothing, this novel provides both crackerjack storytelling and an endearingly complex protagonist. (maps, cast of characters, glossaries) (Fantasy/mystery. 12 & up)
School Library Journal
Gr 10 Up—This is the final chapter of the series. Although readers unfamiliar with the previous two books are at a disadvantage, a thorough cast of characters and glossary help to get them up to speed. Moreover, Pierce has created a world so fully realized that the language becomes second nature, much like English subtitles for foreign films. Beka Cooper is a fourth-year Dog, the Tortall word for cop, operating in a world in which mages are commonplace and palaces are protected by layers of powerful spells. In Mastiff, a cabal of mages, nobles, and slave traders kidnaps four-year-old Prince Gareth. Beka and her colleagues pursue him using magic; a scent-tracking dog named Achoo; and good, old-fashioned police work. Notwithstanding the many instances of sorcery and butchery necessary in a novel of this type, Mastiff is character-driven rather than action-packed. The language is rich and earthy, adding a feast of curse words to readers' lexicons. The theme of gender roles is central to this book and the others in the trilogy. Beka's skills as a cop and her midden-mouth are nicely contrasted with the noble women who worship the "Great Mother," who demands submissive acceptance of what, in other worlds, are considered "a woman's place." Ambition and duplicity—including a devastating betrayal of trust by one of the main characters-are constant themes. Yet it is also a love story, a buddy book, a picaresque novel, and, of course, a fantasy. A must-have for mature teen collections.—Nina Sachs, Walker Memorial Library, Westbrook, ME
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780375814709
  • Publisher: Random House Children's Books
  • Publication date: 10/25/2011
  • Series: Beka Cooper Series , #3
  • Pages: 608
  • Sales rank: 143071
  • Age range: 12 - 16 Years
  • Lexile: 790L (what's this?)
  • Product dimensions: 5.70 (w) x 8.50 (h) x 1.86 (d)

Meet the Author

Tamora Pierce

TAMORA PIERCE has completed four series of books set in the fantasy realm of Tortall. Pierce's fast-paced, suspenseful writing and strong, believable heroines have won her much praise: Emperor Mage was a 1996 ALA Best Book for Young Adults.

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Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4.5
( 195 )
Rating Distribution

5 Star

(142)

4 Star

(28)

3 Star

(13)

2 Star

(5)

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See All Sort by: Showing 1 – 20 of 196 Customer Reviews

  • Anonymous

    Posted Fri Oct 28 00:00:00 EDT 2011

    Was not impressed by far my least favorite

    Lets get something straight. Tamora Pierce is my all time favorite author but in Mastiff, she let me down. Beka is un-realistic and seems to completely change her character. Two fiances in a span of a year or so...very un-like her. And **SPOILER ALERT** Tunstall at the end, no way, even for Sabine he would NEVER become the villan. Farmer is bland to say the least and never makes you root for him. Hes just plain boring. Not the right man for beka. Dale was exciting and so was Rosto, why the hell pick Farmer? Pounce seems to be the only character I was really concentrating on in this, he was the only exciting one. All the magic gets boring and it just seems like a circle of magic knock off. No good fights like in the previous books, just alot of damn running around. Very confusing. I also missed all the previous characters we see NONE of Kora, Aniki, Goodwin or Ersken. Its sad really really upsetting actually. I was waiting for so long for this but it really doesnt seem worth it now. Lets hope her next series is alot better than this. Dissapointed to say the least. After this I think I am just going to stick to rereading Keladry, at least that has some action worth reading.

    11 out of 18 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted Sat Oct 22 00:00:00 EDT 2011

    more from this reviewer

    Tamora Pierce saved the best for last

    At the beginning of our story, Holdon is gone. Beka and Holdon were engaged, ready to walk down the aisle, when Holdon did an incredibly brave and stupid thing and ran into a fight with no backup to prove, perhaps, that he was a better warrior than Beka. However, Beka doesn't feel the sadness she should. Because, quite frankly, she was about to end her relationship with Holdon right before he died. The guilt that runs through her for not feeling angrier about the death of her betrothed is what is eating Beka up inside. But before she has time to really deal with it all, in the middle of the night her lord Gershom appears at her door, and with no information, tells her to pack her things. They are headed out on a Hunt of secretive proportions. So Beka, without a word, brings Achoo (her scent dog who can literally find anything), her cat, Pounce, who is far more than a cat and gives her information that only a 'god' would know, and follows the lord out into the night. Reaching the docks, Beka, her partner, Tunstall, and Gershom, are the small team that boards one of the Crown's most precious super-fast vessels, and fly across the sea to the Blue Harbor, finding themselves at the Summer Palace of Their Majesty's. There, they discover the royal guards pasty white and shaking, and a true landscape of death. Meeting up with a mage called Master Farmer, the secret is revealed that Beka's team must work for the King and Queen in secret to find something that is more precious to the kingdom than anything else. Working with this odd mage, Beka's team must investigate everything from slave ships and slave traders to whether or not the mages, themselves, have begun an uprising because of the taxes and laws that the King has put into effect. As always, this author has created a fantasy world at every turn, and the pages come alive with locales and characters that the reader will not believe. And, in the end, Ms. Pierce has made sure to wrap up this trilogy with beauty, adventure, excitement, and a huge lesson to be learned! Quill Says: Tamora Pierce saved the best for last.

    9 out of 12 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2012

    DO NOT READ - HORRIBLE PLOT & CHARACTERS

    This entire book made me cringe. I had to force myself to read it I was dreading the outcome so much and I was right to dread it. This is the worst book she has ever written. I have read all of her Tortall books and none of them ever made me this disappointed in her. Beka is no longer Beka, she has lost all of her personality and quirks that make her her. Pierce twists Tunstalls character and makes him unrecognizeable. This is unrealistic and far stretched, it is a cheap ploy to add a twist at the end but is unbelievable which just makes the entire book unreadable and unbelievable. Tunstall would never do this, we know his character from the first book yet Pierce tries to make us think he is a traitor. This sudden change is not backed up with suggestions from anywhere else it just comes out of the blue. Also Pierce gave us a loveable hero in the first book in Rosto and then proceeded to ignore him for the rest of the series. Why introduce a man we would all root for if she was planning to have Beka end up with one of the most useless and boring characters she has ever written. That also seemed like a ploy to wrap things up clean and tidy. There was no reason for their relationship. It was forced and unbelievable, again Beka suspected her love interest of being a traitor - that is not Beka. She is acting completely without thought to her actual character - this makes the book even worse. The whole novel is just a progression of randomness that Pierce tries and fails to pull together. We again do not see any of our favorite characters which is unforgivable in a last book. She doesn't even seem to mention them or think about them. The plot is not well thought out. Seriously what kind of royal kidnapping would only have four people on it? Her description of events or landscape was flawed and hard to follow, it was not well thought out or explained. She jumped to conclusions without taking the reader along. The cursing and much of the talking in the 'lower city slang' was so forced I cringed when I read it, it disconnected me from the story and instead of adding to the story and characters just detracted.
    I wish I had not read this book it twisted the characters I loved so much from Terrier. It reads like a really bad fanfic and I do not understand why Pierce went in this direction. I have never hated one of her books but I hated this one. It was not just that I did not like what was happening but that I could not believe it would ever happen. Pierce goes off on her own story and leaves the reader behind. The reader cannot understand what she is doing with the characters of plot.
    The series started out as one of my favorite and became my least favorite. The series is not worth reading after the first book, in fact it weakens her entire story of Terrier.
    I REPEAT - DO NOT READ THIS BOOK
    This was one of the worst books I have ever read.

    8 out of 11 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Tue Oct 11 00:00:00 EDT 2011

    Eagerly waiting on the edge of my seat.

    I am a twenty five year old woman and I love this author. I have been reading her books since 1998 and at one time I owned her entire complete collection up to blood hound. Had to sell it for financial reasons and it broke my heart. I have read all of her books many many times over and find new and fun details each time. I recommend the Immortals series the most.

    4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted Sat Sep 10 00:00:00 EDT 2011

    I Also Recommend:

    The Rowan (Tower and Hive Series #1)
    Graceling
    The Shifter (Healing Wars Series #1)
    The Goose Girl
    Joust (Dragon Jousters Series #1)

    Tamora Pierce is my all-time favorite author!!!

    I've been impatiently waiting for Mastiff ever since Bloodhound came out! I've been reading Tammy's books for the last 20 years, and I've never been disappointed! Always a great read!

    4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted Sun Aug 28 00:00:00 EDT 2011

    Can't wait!!! can't wait!!!!

    I love Tamora's books!!!! I've read pretty much all of them since I was 12 ( now 25), She is the only author who's books I will read over again... I just started Alanna back up I wanna read them all again :) Get here soon Mastiff I've been missing Beka!

    4 out of 7 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted Sun Jan 29 00:00:00 EST 2012

    I love Tamora Pierce's books! But...

    Mastiff is my least favorite book of all Pierce's books. Beka has changed in ways that don't make sense to me as the reader. The beginning was confusing, but I overlooked that as a way for Pierce to be more interesting with the way she wanted "Beka" to tell this story. Even though the plot was good, this book didn't grab me as much as her other books did. Perhaps because her new characters weren't as special. We see little to none of Beka's friends such as Rosto, Kora, and Anika. The romance seemed so subtle in this compared to the past books. Farmer was different and a fun person but not as unique or exciting as Dale or Rosto. Lastly, the part of Tunstall being a traitor... didn't fit. Maybe their wasn't enough explanation for it, but I cannot see the person we have grown to know, switch sides so easily for the reason he did. To me, the part felt forced in the book and didn't naturally fit. I'm even even upset to admit I am disappointed in this book. Beka is such an amazing character, but this book has some noticeable flaws.

    3 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Tue Jan 17 00:00:00 EST 2012

    Dissappointing

    Considering how long I had to wait for this book, I am shocked at the lack of quality writing I have come to expect from this author. I've read a majority of her books and have greatly enjoyed them, including the first two of the Beka Cooper series. The story felt rushed and the way the story ended left a bad taste in my mouth. Looking at it logically and the character development in the previous books, Mastiff drastically deviates to such a degree that their not even the same characters any more. Hopefully this title was a fluke and future releases are MUCH better.

    3 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Tue Dec 13 00:00:00 EST 2011

    Absolutely fantastic!

    I loved this book wholeheartedly. Beka Cooper is without a doubt my favorite of Tamora Pierce's heroines. Her character is the most real and deep, i feel, and she stands out from the others because the thing that is most special about her is that she is herself. All of her strength and the uniqueness of her character comes from within. She's not the first lady knight in a century, she's not a prophecied divine savior, or a uniquely discovered shape shifter. She's just Beka.
    I really loved how the story begins years after the last left off, leaving us with an older Beka with a very different life than the one we left her in. Her guilt over her lack of feelings for Holborn and his death give a depth to Beka's monologue that many authors would not utilize, and the plot leads through places and people rife with complexity and danger. The betrayal at the end broke my heart, and i just didn't want to believe it. The story holds you in it's grip to the very end. Phenomenaly well written, and a worthy end to Beka's story. I pray to Mithros and the Goddess this won't be the last we hear from the land of Tortall.

    3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Wed Nov 16 00:00:00 EST 2011

    Decent addition to Tortall

    Not too many surprises - pretty much everyone who you think is evil turns out to be evil, but an enjoyable read nonetheless and a satisfying end to the Beka Cooper trilogy. I could have done without constant references to bodily excrement though.

    3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Wed Oct 26 00:00:00 EDT 2011

    Amazing!

    I just want to know why it took two years? Totally worth it though.

    3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted Sat Oct 15 00:00:00 EDT 2011

    more from this reviewer

    The third Beka Cooper young adult fantasy police procedural is a terrific thriller

    Holburn the Dog was killed when he foolishly attacked a nest of slave guards. His mother blames his death on her son's betrothal to a fellow Dog Beka Cooper; while her peers, her partner, her superior and the rest of his family knows Holburn acted in a suicidal way with his assault. Instead of mourning her loss, Beka feels free and guilty for feeling free.

    King Roger the "randy one" and his second wife Queen Jessamine need a special top Secret Hunt with a team having the best scent hound. Thus Beka and her partner Matt Tunstall accompanied by her animal friends (Pounce the supernatural cat and Achoo the scent hound), his lover Sabine the lady knight and Farmer Cape the Kennel mage begin a search and rescue Hunt for the kidnapped heir to the throne of Tortall

    The third Beka Cooper young adult fantasy police procedural (see Bloodhound and Terrier) is a terrific thriller due to the lead protagonist. Her peers recognize her strengths as she believes in doing what is right though that is often difficult to gauge. The story line opens with the stunning realistic funeral of her fiancé and never slows down as the heroine and her retinue Hunt clues for the abducted heir in what is a superb kidnapping investigative tale.

    Harriet Klausner

    3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Tue Jan 17 00:00:00 EST 2012

    The only T Pierce book I didn't like

    Terrible story.

    2 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Sat Jan 14 00:00:00 EST 2012

    Awesome

    Completly amazing! I could not put it down, it was definatly worth the wait.

    2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted Mon Oct 31 00:00:00 EDT 2011

    Just Might Be My New Favorite

    The night after burying her fiance Beka Cooper is summoned by Lord Provost on a mission that he only trusts her with. Death, doubts, and betrayal plague her as she sets out on her great hunt to track down the traitors that have kidnapped the prince of the land. If you have enjoyed any of the other books written by Tamora Pierce, you will enjoy this one also. I had to pace myself to make the book last but by the last third or so I could not put it down until I finished at 2:30 a.m. Recommended for teens and older especially girls.

    2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Tue Apr 03 00:00:00 EDT 2012

    Horrible

    I have never been so upset with T.P. she has alway written great books. This one felt rushed and seemed a cheap book I can't believe I paid for this and finished it. It was a huge let down. I wish she had just not finished the ending. Instead she destroyed it. It's as if she wrote the book and did it while watching tv, listening to music, and reading another book.

    1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Wed Mar 21 00:00:00 EDT 2012

    I love Pierce's writing, and have been a dedicated follower sinc

    I love Pierce's writing, and have been a dedicated follower since junior high when she had only her series on Alanna and Daine. I was not disappointed in the Beka Cooper series, and Mastiff was my favorite of the three. I loved the unexpectedness, the twist written into the plot. Maybe it was a little unrealistic, but if you want reality, why are you reading fantasy?! I can't wait to find out what else Ms. Pierce has in store for her readers!

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Wed Feb 15 00:00:00 EST 2012

    Not sure what makes this series for teens

    Terrific ending to a great trilogy.

    1 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Thu Feb 09 00:00:00 EST 2012

    Good Read and Good Ending to the Series

    Overall this book was a good book to end the series. The begining was a little confusing and didn't make a lot of sense. As the book moved on the plot got better and I enjoyed reading it. However, the ending of the book was unexpected and didn't make complete sense(almost like the author changed a character just for the plot). But, overall the book was great and just what I was looking for.

    1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted Sat Dec 03 00:00:00 EST 2011

    Highly Recommended!!

    Let's just say I waited many, many months for this book to finally come out and when it did, I fell out of my tiny desk chair. I was ecstatic when I saw that it was available for purchase and immediately shoved all my text books aside to click on the "purchase" button for my Nook. With heart pounding, I made my final decision and within seconds, my electronic book had been stored in my library. All kidding aside (though this event actually did happen in this sequence), this book is creatively written, wonderful for readers in their preteens and older. Tamora Pierce has craftily intertwined the problems of normal teenagers finding a place in society, dealing with heavy responsibilities, and the importance of the many kinds of relationships that relate to our world. Based on this book, the previous ones in the trilogy, and the imaginative mind of the author, I would definitely read other books by her and recommend this particular book to anyone who enjoys the thrill of adventure, the suspense that every chapter brings, and a bit of magic....

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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