Bloodhound

Review by Booklist Review

Readers unfamiliar with the first book in the Beka Cooper trilogy, Terrier (2006), will be temporarily confused by this follow-up's cast of characters and colorful slang, such as cove for man and mot for woman, but this teen police procedural stands on its own. Sixteen-year-old rookie policewoman Beka and her temporary partner, Clary, are sent to Port Caynn to investigate the source of counterfeit coins that have begun to appear in the markets and taverns. The wealth of detail, shared in diary format, occasionally threatens to overwhelm the book's pacing and action, but quirky, endearing characters save the story.--Welch, Cindy Copyright 2009 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by School Library Journal Review

Gr 7 Up-Set in the mystical land of Tortall, Tamora Pierce's sequel (2009) to Terrier (2006, both Random), the second book in a planned trilogy, is set in the mystical land of Tortall. Seventeen-year-old Beka Cooper, a Dog (police officer) in the Provost's Guard, has established herself as an uncompromising cop, above the bribery and corruption that permeates the Lower City of Corus. Through her journal entries, Beka reveals how she discovers counterfeit silver coins flooding the city. She joins forces with her mentor, and travels undercover to the city of Port Caynn to discover the source. Shy, serious Beka must play the flirt to gather information. Danger, romance, and intrigue evolve very slowly. While Susan Denaker does a fine job as narrator, listeners may wish that the voices of the dozens of characters were more distinct. The plot suffers from a lack of excitement, so those new to the series might not be drawn in, but hardcore Pierce fans will enjoy this offering. Libraries circulating the audio version of the first book will definitely want to add this episode to their collections.-Tricia Melgaard, Centennial Middle School, Broken Arrow, OK (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Horn Book Review

(Middle School) Living in Tortall generations before the events of Pierce's celebrated Song of the Lioness Quartet, Beka Cooper (Terrier, rev. 1/07) is making her mark as a Dog-a member of the nation's police force-with just one problem: she's too uncompromising to keep a partner. One of the first to notice the counterfeit coin panic crippling the capital city of Corus, Beka, paired with mentor Goodwin, travels to neighboring Port Caynn to investigate the provenance of the coins-and faces a new enemy in Pearl Skinner, the Rogue of Port Caynn, whose greed, cruelty, and shortsightedness effectively contrast the more Robin Hood-esque tendencies of Corus's own Rogue. The book is structured as Beka's log, and as such is long on procedural details and short on messy emotional entanglements-a daring and ultimately successful departure from Pierce's usual fantasy formula. Juggling an extensive but vivid cast of characters, Pierce brings to life a squalid, colorful world brimming with magic, misdeeds, and ordinary folk just trying to get by. The central mystery is complex and credibly untangled, with plenty of unsavory subplots to make its intricacies (who knew a fantasy novel could so incisively explain the economic impact of large-scale counterfeiting?) accessible. Beka's moral compass never wavers, but secondary characters introduce all sorts of ethical gray areas, leaving readers plenty to ponder. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

In this second volume in Pierce's historical Tortall trilogy, Beka Cooper is now a junior Dog (police officer) in the Corus slums. Beka's uncompromising morality will never make her popular, but it nets her a high class of friendsand gains her a new scent-hound (endearingly named Achoo), rescued from a brutal former master. Her latest adventure starts slowly, with creeping worry about the large number of counterfeit silver coins she's seen. Soon she's investigating the counterfeits in the nearby city of Port Caynn, befriending gamblers and making enemies of both magistrates and criminals. Beka's Tortall is clearly distinct from the 200-years-later Tortall of the Alanna books: Elizabethan-inspired (and decipherable) slang adds earthy flavor, and the thin line between crime and law shows more subtlety than the high-fantasy good and evil of Alanna's world. Despite the languid pace, Beka's detective work will appeal not just to Pierce fans, but to lovers of police procedurals. After all, the detail-oriented, plodding movement of the storymuch like Beka's own methodbuilds to a well-established, satisfying revelation. (Fantasy. 11-14) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Thursday, September 6, 247 H.E. I should have known tonight's watch would kiss the mule's bum when Sergeant Ahuda stopped me after baton training. "A private word, Cooper," she told me, and pulled me into a quiet corner of the yard. Her dark eyes were sharp on my face. We'd gotten on well since I'd finished my Puppy year and in my five months' work as a Dog. I couldn't think what I might have done to vex her. "Your reports have gotten sloppy." That was Ahuda, never one to soften her words. "You leave out detail, you skip what's said. You used to write the best reports of any Puppy or first-year Dog, but not of late. Have you slacked on the memory exercises?" I gazed at the ground. Of course I've been slacking. What's the use, with partners like I've had? Ahuda put her brown fist under my chin and thrust my head up so I'd look her in the eye. "Shall I send you back to Puppy training for a refreshing in memory study?" "Sarge, please don't." The plea left my mouth before I could stop the words. Goddess, not Puppy training again, not even one class! I'd never hear the end of it! Ahuda took her fist away and propped it on one of her sturdy hips. "Then however you kept your memory quick before, start doing it again. Steel yourself, wench! You're not the only first-year Dog with partners who are less than gold. Work with it!" She marched back to the kennel. I went to wash and put on my uniform. We had the Happy Bag to collect tonight, me and my partner Silsbee. Our route took us along Fortunetellers' Walk, where I'd be sure to find a shop that sold journal books. I'd thought I wouldn't need to keep one after my Puppy year, but if Ahuda was complaining of my reports, it was time to start again. I didn't even have Pounce to make me feel better as we mustered for the Evening Watch. The cat had stopped coming with us three days after I'd been partnered with Silsbee. I'd begged him to come. It was Pounce's remarks about folk, and about Silsbee himself, that made it easier for me to walk patrol with the man, but Pounce would have none of it. He bores me, and he only lets you do boring things, too, my annoying constellation cat said. I see no reason why both of us should be bored. And so I went out to collect our Happy Bag's worth of bribes with Silsbee and no one else, listening to him jabber about the meal his wife had prepared before he came on watch. Those huge meals are one reason that when we reached our patrol route, I visited all the shopkeepers with businesses upstairs. On Fortunetellers' Walk they went up three and four stories, each room with a crystal reader, or a palm reader, or any other kind of reader. Silsbee stood below and blabbered with the ground-floor shopkeepers. They brought him drinks and cakes, stupid loobies. Did they think he'd run after the Rat that stole their goods? I did all the climbing in the miserable heat, just as I would run down their Rats when they came. We gathered the Happy Bag and finished our watch. Ersken invited me to supper with him, his partner Birch, and some of the others, but I was in no mood for it. I just don't feel like I earn that extra bit from the Happy Bag with Silsbee dragging at me all the time. It makes me feel low. I was walking through the kennel courtyard when I noticed that Silsbee waited by the gate. He crooked a finger at me. "A word with ye, Cooper," he said. My temples banged. The last thing I wanted was any kind of speech with that sheep biter when I was off duty, but he was my senior partner. I went to him. "I'll speak with Sergeant Ahuda, but ye've the right to know first. I'm requestin' a new partner." He dug at his teeth with a wooden pick. "Ye really deserve that name they give ye, Terrier. Y' are a Terrier. Ye make me nervous, with yer hands and feet twitchin' and yer teeth grindin', allus wantin' t' chase after every wee noise and squeak. Even in this weather! If I was younger--but I ain't. It's best we say we're not suited before we get fond." "You're cutting me loose." I said it slow, just to be sure I had it right. It hurt, to hear the nickname I was so proud of turned against me. "Ye give me fidgets." He shrugged and held out his hands as if to say, "What am I to do?" "You--" I said, trying not to show my fury. "Do you know how many Rats I could have caught and hobbled, had you not held me back?" "Now, Cooper, don't make me write ye up for sauce." He waved that disgusting toothpick at me. There was a chunk of something on its end. "You want to hear sauce?" Two weeks of working with the louse boiled over and out of my mouth. "You walk a bit, and you stop for a jack of ale. Then you stroll a block or three, till you need 'a wee tidbit,' as would feed a family of five. A cove gets his pocket picked? 'We'll have Day Watch pick that Rat up,' you say. 'There's folk with children to feed on Day Watch as can use the bribes.' Someone cries murder a street over? 'Plenty of folk hereabouts put up a shout because they like to make me run. I ain't a-fallin' for that trick again.' Once we get there, any Rats are gone--it's enough to make a mot scream." "I'm beginnin' t' see why ye're not well favored when it comes to partners, Cooper," he said. "Ye say nothin' for days, then ye talk sewer muck." He strolled into the kennel, as smug as a tax man with soldiers at his back. I stood there, shaking, my hands clenched so tight around my new-bought journal that they cramped. From the Hardcover edition. Excerpted from Bloodhound by Tamora Pierce All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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