Pierce, Tamora.
TERRIER
New York : Random House, 2006
IL YA
ISBN 0375914684

(2 booktalks)

Beka Cooper is a Puppy, a trainee, in the Provost’s Guard. But, she is different from the other trainee’s. For one thing, she has a purple-eyed talking cat, Pounce, with an attitude. For another, she is shy, so shy it is hard for her to talk at all to strangers. And, of course, there is her magical listening talent.
She gets assigned to Tunstall and Goodwin, the best pair of Dogs on the Guard who are none too pleased to be stuck with her. But, on her first night, she gets too overconfident. When Goodwin sends her after a cutpurse, she is in such a hurry to prove how good she is that she forgets her training and doesn’t keep an eye out for his lookout partner who sticks out a foot and sends her flying into a pile of fish heads, guts and tails. 
Chagrined, she is sent to rinse off under the barrels they keep for the fishermen to wash and then home to care for her uniform. She is determined to run off to sea, but Pounce will have none of it and chides her for sulking. Eventually, her mood improves. 
But, she has learned a valuable lesson in humility which will be invaluable in her future on the Guard. When the power structure of the underworld is overturned and the citizens there thrown into terror and submission, it will be Beka and her unique talent that will be relied upon to find the identity of the perpetrator and stop his wave of crime.
(Sam Marsh,  Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award Nominees 2009) 

Booktalk #2

In the imaginary medieval-ish kingdom of Tortall, 16-year old Beka Cooper has just signed on to become a “Puppy” (a rookie cop) in the Provost’s Guard, the peacekeeping officers who are commonly referred to as Dogs.  Beka asks for duty in the Lower City, which is a tough beat: gangs, thieves: you name it.  It’s also where she grew up.

Beka doesn’t take any guff from anyone, and she speaks the lingo of the Lower City. She also has another gift; she can hear the restless spirits of the dead who inhabit pigeons.

Now someone is killing workers and children, and Beka aims to find out who.

She has the help of various friends, plus her purple-eyed cat, Pounce, who is more than he seems.  Beka is a vengeful Puppy who becomes known as a Terrier among the Dogs for her determination in bringing wrong-doers to justice.

(Booktalk by Cindy Claypool, King County Library System for the Evergreen YA Book Award, 2009)