Tamora Pierce is a lover of strong female role models and most of her books are aimed towards young women ages 8 - 16. The Beka Cooper series is aimed at an older audience however (I'd say 14 to 30) due to it's size and complexity and not trying to teach life lessons. That being said the series is perfectly wholesome so if your pre-teen is an advanced reader, by all means get them this series.

For a run down of the world of Tortall as a whole see my first review of Alanna, The First Adventure. Book One of the Song of the Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce.

For an introduction to Beka Cooper see my review of Book 1: Terrier

Bloodhound

This book is set approximately a year after Terrier. Beka has been promoted from 'Puppy' Trainee Provost Guard to a full 'Dog' and is being paired up with a Guard as every Dog has a Partner to watch their back. Her first Partner died of a fever. Her second Partner she ended up arresting for taking a bribe to ignore a murder. Her third partner she had to threaten to cut his hands off if he didn't keep them to himself. We meet her as her fourth partner, a portly partner fond of fried food and gossip lets her go since she's too twitchy for him wanting to nab every thief she sees, meanwhile he says it's too much effort. All Beka wants is a partner that will treat Provost work as seriously as she does. So Beka goes back and teams up to be a third to Goodwin and Tunstalls pair.

Meanwhile, there's news of this years harvest being poor, the rhye being rotten and then Tansy, a friend of Bekas', begs Beka to come over and help her check her supply of silver nobles (The coin currency mentioned in the series goes copper bit, copper noble, silver noble, gold bit, gold noble, gold crown) as she has embarrasingly found 'coles' (fakes) in her supply.

Though only 3 others were found in Tansys' savings it slowly begins to get worse and worse in the rest of the city. In between the the increase of coles in the moneystream and the poor harvests, it ends up causing a riot when the cost of basic food stuffs rose so the poor couldn't afford to eat. During what would later be called the "bread riot" Poor Tunstall had his legs broken and so was put on bed rest for the rest of the book.

So Clary Goodwin and Beka Cooper are partnered up and during their investigation they find the coles are coming from Port Cayne. Port Cayne is sort of the "sub-capital" of Tortall. It is a half day boat ride downstream from Corus, the actual Capital, however Port Cayn is the center of international trade. You are almost as likely to rub shoulders with a foreigner from another country as much as a Tortallan whilst walking the streets of Port Cayne.
So Goodwin and Cooper are sent to Port Cayne to investigate the source of the coles under the half-truth guise of keeping recently ex-Puppy Cooper away from a family of no-gooders that are seeking revenge for her having arrested a family member, whilst also learning how the Dogs of another city work.

What they end up finding is that the dogs of Port Cayne are almost as bad as the rats.

Thoughts

This is an intense read, especially once Beka reaches Port Cayne. Pounce is absent for half the book, but we instead meet Achoo, a scent hound that gets foisted onto Beka when she points out that her current handler is mistreating her. The current handler shoves the hounds lead into Bekas hands and abandons the hound for Beka the barely-a-dog to be responsible for. Achievement Unlocked! Beka is now a scent-hound-handler.

We get to know Goodwin better in this book and her character gets fleshed out a little which I appreciated. You get to understand the workings of Tortall, and what can go wrong if the major power players don't do their jobs.

This is one of the few books in the entire collection of books based in Tortall where science helps more than magic. So I have a small soft spot for this book for that alone. There is love interest in the book. As with about a third of Tamora Pierce's book, sex is implied. Magical contraception charms are mentioned. Beka does meet and befriend homosexuals and cross-dressers (though they go by different names). If you don't want your children reading such things then look for a different author. It's not brought up often but it's definitely not ignored.

Finale

I give this 7.5/10. There is far more depth to the character interactions in this book. The stakes are higher and the odds are lower and the pages keep turning. I still hold that this series was published for the Tortall buffs but it's well written, well paced and you all but walk the city of Port Cayne yourself.

The only reason why I gave it a lower mark is it would be hard for someone who hasn't read the original Song of the Lioness quartet to grasp alot of the nuances that make this book so engaging. It's definitely aimed towards the fans.