YMMV / Provost's Dog

• Complete Monster:
  • Ammon Lofts (known as "Crookshank"), one of the two serial killers from Terrier, is already a slumlord who forced at least one debtor to sell his wife into slavery, driving her to suicide. He's rich, but when he discovers fire opals under the city, he lures in jobless poor folk to mine them in secret, then kills them all and starts over when each mine is spent. He does this several times over the course of the book, killing seven to ten people each time. When his great-grandson Rolond is kidnaped by the Shadow Snake, he refuses to pay a ransom of opals out of pride and greed, resulting in him being killed, and continues when the same is threatened to his grandson Herrun. When Beka tries talking some sense into him, he threatens to have her raped and murdered.
  • Mistress Deirdry Noll, the other serial killer from Terrier, uses the legend of the "Shadow Snake" to go after poor Lower City families by abducting their children to extort their valuables, usually the only slightly valuable thing they own, such as a family heirloom or a bauble saved up for. If not paid, the Snake will kill the child, and if the family has others, she'll take them until she gets what she wants. She kills Crookshank's great-grandson in part because she has a grudge against the child's mother. When she is finally unmasked and apprehended, she has no remorse and justifies her actions with "I deserve nice things more than they do and that bitch made the success of my business more difficult." While she's being arrested, she shows herself as an abusive parent.
• Harsher in Hindsight: When Goodwin complains about the potential dangers of Tunstall and Sabine's relationship in Terrier, it comes across as her being crotchety and overprotective. But even she couldn't have seen the catastrophes their relationship causes in Mastiff.
• Heartwarming Moments: Despite the major differences in their respective social classes, something that Beka is very aware of, Beka does her best to comfort the Queen in Mastiff, even giving her a hug.
  • Pounce defying the gods' rules by healing a mortally wounded Achoo.

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