Sorry, but I just finished the first book of this trilogy before I started writing the BBR(Blog Book Reports). So this is the second book of the Beka Cooper trilogy by Tamora Pierce who is an awesome author. So far Beka has just become a Dog(full fledged member of the Provost's guard). She is in a bad situation, she can't seem to find a good partner that works well with her. Right now she is really frustrated with a new partner called Silsbee. She got into a argument with him because along the way to duty he always has to go get a "wee tidbit" or a "sip of cider". When they hear a person screaming for help, he says I'm not falling for"that trick" again. So when Beka finally blows up at him, he says that Beka is not going to be his partner, he refuses to work with her anymore. When Beka gets back, she is depressed because she is going to go back to working with the Dogs she trained with, Clary Goodwin and Matthias Tunstall(weird names huh?). Beka loves working with them, but she is frustrated and a little bit ashamed that she can't seem to work well with anyone. It is also very strange to see three dogs together on duty. The next morning, Beka gets up to the noise of people knocking at her door. She knows that they are Kora, Aniki, Rosto, and Ersken, her closet friends. Once a week, they all have a huge breakfast. Beka says good morning to Pounce, her cat. Pounce is actually a constellation called the Cat. After their breakfast, Beka goes on duty. She comes across a riot when all the citizens of the Lower City are outraged of the fact that prices have gone up on day- old bread. In the riot, they meet some people from Port Caynn who help carry Tunstall to a healing mage when he gets both of his legs broken. After the Bread Riot and a nap, Beka goes outside to stretch her legs and sees a Senior Dog beating a hound. (In this book, dogs are called hounds because that was the way people spoke at that time and if you said dogs, people would be confused with Dogs with a capitol D.) She hates seeing the man beat the hound and finally tells him to stop, even if he is a Senior Dog. The Senior Dog is very angry and he just dumps the dog into Beka's hands. Sergeant Ahuda lets Beka keep the dog, who is named Achoo and Beka had met this dog before. Now Beka takes Achoo to Kora, who is a mage and asks her to help heal Achoo from all the beatings she's had. Beka goes to see Phelan, who was the first handler of Achoo. Phelan tells Beka the rules and commands of the language that Achoo was taught in. Beka tries out Achoo with scents and Achoo sneezed like she was famous for because this do sneezes when she gets a good scent. Goodwin and Beka go to Port Caynn to find research on the silver coles. Silver coles are fake silver coins that are brass covered in a thin sheet of silver, kind of like now day pennies. Beka soon discovers that the rogue Pearl Skinner was behind this crime. She corners Pearl and hobbles her(tied her hands and feet together. When Beka gets back to Corus, she discovers that Sergeant Ahuda is planning to go to a higher position in the Flash District and Goodwin is replacing her. That leaves broken-legged Tunstall partnerless, so Beka is his new partner. Beka finally found someone that she works very well with and is happy.
