Terrier

Oh, my stars, did I love this book and character. It's YA, and written from a sixteen-year-old's point of view, but to some extent some of the experience is universal: being new on the job, and being dressed-down gently but firmly (and sometimes, just firmly) for taking on too much, for attempting tasks for which one is lacking both experience and proper training. I'm in a new job, too, and so I related to the main character perfectly on that point!

The heroine, Beka Cooper, is a young teen former guttersnipe, now apprenticing with her local law enforcement agents. What the story so far reminds me of very strongly is the world of Melissa Scott and Lisa Barnett's Points books, which are police procedurals set in a secondary fantasy world - teenage apprentices figure into that world as well. How I would love crossover action/adventure fanfic with Beka in the same world as Philip and Nico!

Although Beka can hear the spirits of the dead speak through the medium of the pigeons she feeds, and she is able to speak telepathically with her cat, magic did not feature prominently through the first two-thirds of the book. In the last third, the use of magic came more into play, though it did not overwhelm the more mundane police-procedural aspects. Though the plot and characters and world-building was hardly "mundane". Very rich and detailed, just the kind of writing I adore.

I loved this so much I immediately checked out the next two Beka Cooper books Bloodhound and Mastiff from my local library. So my WOGF reading is going on hold until I finish these! It won't take long.