Bloodhound: Book Review

Same as always, initial thoughts contain no spoilers or sneezing dogs.

In this sequel Beka is a first year Dog (city guard), but she is trying to strike out on her own and find her own partner instead of just being a third in the great team of Goodwin and Tunstall. Unfortunately for Beka (but much to the amusement of her friends) she has one bad partner after another until the last one finally dumps her. Partnerless again, Beka gets drawn into a project to ferret out a nefarious conterfieter before the entire city crumbles under inflation and riots. Her investigation leads her and her friend Goodwind to Port Cayne where the conterfieter has the local government under control.

I liked this book at least as much as the previous one which is the type of thing you want from a sequel. Pierce said she was concerned conterfieting wouldn't be exciting enough. Admittedly my summary probably doesn't do it justice. I promise there's just as much action and fighting as in the previous, one. After all, she's still dealing with criminals. And unlike our dear Rogue Rosto, these are the type of criminals that don't mind going down as long as they pull you down with them.

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Okay, now for spoilers and Achoo.

I continued to enjoy the development of all the characters. I was disappointed that Beka didn't get to spend more time in Corus (with Rosto), but I still thought Port Cayne was interesting, particularly Sir Lionel of Trebond. Alanna always did say there was insanity in her family. You finally get to see that she wasn't joking. I also didn't mention it in the last review but Pounce is clearly the same cat as Faithful. I did think that Pounce's decision not to help Beka this time was a bit of a plot device, but at least she didn't kill him. I hate it when they kill characters for a plot device. Though I was sad about Slapper. He was both wonderful and revolting all at once but at least he went out epically. I also LOVED the ghosts in the pigeons arguing with each other. That was hilarious.

Achoo was a cute dog but I thought Pierce spent a bit too much talking about her training. Speaking of dogs, I knew Dale was going to be a cad from the get go which made it hard for me to enjoy the romance part. I did, however, like the fact that Rosto got jealous. Sadly it looks like he still has a bit of growing before he has a chance with Beka. But I think he's still ten times the man Dale will ever be. Rosto saved Beka, after all, and he filled her room with flowers while she was recovering. Dale didn't even visit right away when Beka could have died and then he only did it to break up with her! What an undigested whump. Still, I also liked that Pierce didn't make Dale an actual villain. He was just a lame guy. I appreciated that Beka still kept the jewelry Dale gave her. I related to that.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the third book in this series, Mastiff, said to be released 2010. Beka is a character who's easy to admire. I've never understood her fear of public speaking considering she can so easily kick the snot out of people. But I suppose those are two different things. I'll probably still think it's a good series if, like Keladry, she never gets together with anyone. But I'm still cheering for Rosto. Even if his name does sound a little like some kind of nut. Give me an R. Give me an O. Give me an S. T. O. Rooooosto!