Pointsman Nicolas Rathe and the dashing soldier Philip Eslingen return in a new novel set in the great city of Astreiant. As the Dog Moon approaches with the promise of terrier races popular among aristocrats and common people alike, the broadsheets are filled with scandal. A suspicious bankruptcy threatens to destabilize Astreiant's merchant class; dog trainers have gone missing or turned up dead. When Eslingen receives an unwanted dog, the domestic contentment he shares with Rathe is threatened-but more threatening still is the offer of a new position that seems to poach upon the prerogatives of Astreiant's pointsmen and his lover's livelihood.