Mastiff: The Legend of Beka Cooper #3 [Hardcover]

"Terrier" is one of my favorite Pierce books, quite an upset considering the lens of middle-school nostalgia through which I see the Alanna quartet. With "Bloodhound" I was less thrilled, but since I got to spend more time with the amazing, admirable Beka, I wrote it off as a sophomore slump.

With "Mastiff," I realized Pierce is no longer writing the kind of story I like to read.

Kirkus nailed it when they compared Pierce's approach to a police procedural, and it's this approach which either raises or damns Beka's story depending on the audience. If you enjoy Issue stories, wherein Bad Things are given an unflinching and immediate portrayal, and there are at least one or two Shocking Twists before the wrap, "Bloodhound" and "Mastiff" are for you. If you want a story that tackles internal issues as well the external -- such as identity and ideology, and the conflict between idealism and realism -- then you're better off reading "Terrier" and leaving it at that. I'm sure some people will vehemently insist "Mastiff" contains these issues as well. I disagree, or at least, I disagree that it tackles them with the same immediacy and deeply personal stakes introduced in "Terrier." That book was a young woman's struggle to find her place in a corrupt-yet-beloved community, where her attempts to find a solid moral ground to stand on were further complicated by complex friendships. The last two in the trilogy are a bit of Beka the Super-Dog: capable of toppling insidious political/economic/cultural corruption in a single book, along with Appropriate Sidekicks.

It's obvious my own preference colors my review. But I have to say my disappointment with "Mastiff" isn't limited to the constraints of its ambition. There were narrative jumps, especially when it came to character motivations, which I simply did not buy. I can't get specific without spoilers. But I'm not saying I refuse to believe the characters would act a certain way because they're Good (i.e. I love them) or Bad (i.e. I hate them). I'm saying Pierce failed to make it feel real to me, and it's a sad ending to a writer-reader relationship that once had me deeply emotionally invested in a cross-dressing, goddess-touched knight trainee and her magical cat companion. Or, more recently, in an underdog slum girl who communicated with whirling clouds of dust and ghost-ridden pigeons. If I could say "I buy it" to things like that, but not to motivations based in emotional logic and realistic relationships, something crucial has gone missing.

I can't give "Mastiff" less than three stars, because it's still a competently-written, solid book. And it addresses a worthwhile issue and unorthodox material for a fantasy romp. (Whether the awareness of said issue translates at all to our world, considering its specific fantasy context, is a bit more questionable.) But the end of this trilogy feels massively divorced from its beginning in terms of focus and relationships. If The Legend of Beka Cooper had started the way it finished, I would have been content to say "not for me" and let bygones be. But I think such a swerve is telling, and can't help but view "Mastiff" through my wish of what might have been.

**Mild Spoilers**

Along with several other reviewers, I pre-ordered _Mastiff_, expecting a well-written and intelligently plotted detective story rooted in familiar Tortallan soil. Previous entries in the series had been both meticulous and genuine in their execution: _Bloodhound_ brought the threat of counterfeit and fiscal inflation vividly to life; _Terrier_ built characters and relationships that challenged Pierce's traditional conflation of order, authority, and good.

_Mastiff_ doesn't duplicate these achievements. To give Pierce credit, in _Mastiff_ she tries to explore the implications of slavery and the difficulty of uprooting entrenched privileges. But she doesn't carry it off: bad or inconsistent characterization turns an essentially gripping story into a didactic exercise.

Very early in the book, we see Beka confronted with a young mother who has lost her only child. She pleads with Beka to bring him back to her, but her pleas--her whole character--is one breathless desolate cliche. We know Pierce is a better writer than this: in _Emperor Mage_, Daine confronts the mage Varice and recognizes something of her own mother in the woman's protest that she never wanted to be powerful, only to make people happy. Varice and Daine's dialogue is fraught, illuminating, and earns them both our sympathy. But neither we nor Beka see anything to respect in Jessamine. She's pretty, desolate, and forgettable.

The more serious problems begin at the two-thirds turn of the story, as we start to collect evidence that someone in Beka's band has turned traitor. With only four in the party, there's scant detecting required to identify the turncoat. Pierce could have played this for tension, shown us Beka aware of the betrayal and gambling on a last minute about-face. Instead, Beka hardly seems concerned: the traitor will out themselves in time--but not before assassinations, arson, and magical nastiness have totally compromised her team's effectiveness.

Still, the biggest problem with Pierce's traitor is that their demeanor, mannerisms, and dialogue change noticeably when they defect. If anyone in the story had remarked on this, or if we'd seen the changes lamp-shaded as a guilty conscience, I might have been able to overlook the shift. Instead, these wobbles feel like the strains of authorial fiat. When we finally learn what motivated the traitor, we find that Pierce has altered the status quo of a relationship established in an earlier book, changed someone's deepest desires and fears--but she never shown _us_ that change. Beka could and should have caught that moment: the blindness and disasters that followed would then have been tragedy, instead of unintended farce.

There are other problems: though we've encountered plenty of likeable mages in her other books, in _Mastiff_ it seems there's only one. Then too, the epilogues feel a bit like a purple neon finger pointing at the Alanna quartet. [No one reading this series will have missed the connection, trust me.]

But in all this whinging, I have to stress that Pierce did some (_many_) things well. This is an intelligent book, though the characters don't always live up to the story. The detective magics are interesting and employed to good effect. As with all the series, there's real textural detail to the setting, and Beka herself has a fascinating view of Tortall.

In sum: _Mastiff_ is worth reading--but not too closely.

I've enjoyed the Beka books so far, though it took a while for me to get over the bizarre jargon surrounding the career of "dog" and all of the "hunts" and "puppies" that go along with it.

Having patiently waited for the third book, I bought it on my kindle the morning it came out. I had read the sneak peak and was eager to see Beka engaging with royalty. (A side note, it has always interested me to see the non-royal side of Tortall, which is all we get with Alanna, Daine, and Kel. And also kind of wtih Aly : . However, I found myself very disappointed.

First, I thought the huge fuss of the dead fiance was out of place. I don't know Holborne. I know Rosto, and I like Rosto. I liked Dale, Kora, et al. I was disappointed that Pierce sort of dropped those characters (more so than in Bloodhound) and instead presented a new cast. I understand that the nature of Beka's job is to work in new environments, but, as a reader, it is so frustrating to get attached to characters only to see them abandoned.

I understand the use of Holborne as a figure who forced Beka to grow in many ways, preparing her for her ten-second love affair with Farmer (which seemed entirely un-Beka.), but I think it would have been more effective if Pierce had planned for this and used Dale, or introduced Holborne previously so that we had some active scenes with him, because all we as readers know of him is his past-tense character flaws.

In terms of the plot, I found it lackluster in several places, dwelling on in ways that were probably meant to be tense and frustrating (the marsh, the final dungeon, Port Caynn) but for me it came off as "this book needs to be longer. Chapter four, in which Beka and Tunstall spend a few days in Port Caynn waiting for their orders." Yuck.

I was also entirely shocked and annoyed by the final "twist". I didn't think that Pierce's characterization in any way prepared us for that. The inconsistency--and the motivation for the traitor's decision--felt ingenuine and thrown together. I was waiting for Pounce to comment about it, since he is the 3rd person voice of reason (I love Pounce! I want a Pounce trilogy!) and he never commented! No, "sorry Beka, but you know how it goes. I can't betray traitors" or anything! I was happy about Pounce's handling of Achoo, and glad to see a reason for his absence until Alanna.

I felt that this book was repurposed to give a happily-ever-after, but also explain some of the history of Tortall. I just wish that it had been staged better, because in many places there was no foreground for an event, it just jumped out and left me shrugging and mumbling "well, I guess that's happened then..."

A second read in a couple of months may change my mind, but my initial reaction is a frown.

I really hope that Pierce writes the Numair and Maura books. And Pounce. Always Pounce.

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