Beka Cooper is no longer a Puppy. She's a Dog now - a full-fledged member of the Provost's Guard, which keeps the peace in Corus's streets. Beka's natural skills of observation and tenacity are augmented by her unusual magical talents, which allow her to gather information both from pigeons are from the eddies of dirt and dust that swirl on street corners. But even her magic isn't very useful when unrest comes to Tortall's capital in the form of counterfeit coins, which turn up in shops all over the city. Merchants raise prices to cover their losses, and with winter coming on, hikes in food and fuel costs could spell disaster - most of all for the city's poor.

The Dogs discover that gamblers are bringing the counterfeits from Port Caynn - and that the Port Caynn Dogs don't seem to be doing anything about it. Beka and her mentor, Clary Goodwin, are chosen to go undercover in Port Caynn and find out what they can. And wherever Beka goes, so do some of her animals. Departing from Corus with her are the scent hound Achoo, who has been newly assigned to Beka, and the pigeon Slapper, who carries the voices of the dead.

In Port Caynn, Beka and Goodwin delve deep into the gambling world. There Beka meets a charming bank courier, who may be involved in the counterfeiting ring. Things come to a head just as Goodwin returns home to report in Corus. It won't be enough to Beka to be her usual "terrier" self. She'll have to learn from Achoo to sniff out the criminals - to be a bloodhound.

I adored this book, loved learning about Port Caynn, seeing how other Rogue’s operate. I really got into the diary-like aspect of this one, though it pained me deeply to have to hear about Tunstall’s suffering in breaking both of his legs. I loved that Beka had a visible relationship with Dale, as it added an extra dimension to her character. It also really made it obvious why Beka would never be able to have a relationship with Rosto, not to mention it made Beka happy while it lasted.

Once again, I loved Pierce’s secondary characters. Nestor and Okha were a great pair, and it was what I thought was a fairly good handling of a trans character, although I wanted Beka to refer to Okha by the feminine pronouns once she realized that Okha identified as a woman, as would be polite, though Okha did live as a man in general, so I can see why she didn’t. I really liked Dale, though his dislike of long distance relationships (for himself) kind of bothered me. I loved how crazy Pearl was, and yet she still showed her humanity in her love and care for animals. It’s one of those touches that has me coming back for every Tamora Pierce book, even though I’m well out of the range for her books.

You also got to see more of Beka’s compassion for everyone, even outside of her beloved city of Corus. Seeing Beka thrown off balance in Port Caynn because she wasn’t sure what she was allowed to do as well as being somewhere where not everyone knew who she was was really interesting to read through.

Seeing Goodwin play a loose cop was confusing for me, and had to have been confusing for Beka. Her backstory is good, though, and makes sense. The ending made sense for her as well – She wasn’t happy on street Hunts anymore, not to mention she missed her man. I can’t help but hope that we do get to see Goodwin again, as she’s my favorite ‘major secondary’ character.