It's Murder, My Son by Lauren Carr

Lauren Carr's debut mystery novel, It's Murder, My Son, is an engaging and intriguing story.  Carr introduces us to Mac Faraday, a divorced, retired police officer who inherits his biological mother's estate when she dies.  As he struggles to accept that his mother was a rich, famous mystery writer and to embrace his new life as a wealthy man, he's drawn to the mystery surrounding a recent murder in his mother's upscale neighborhood.  Gnarly, the German Shepard Mac inherits from his mother, was also the murder victim's dog.  He often steals the show with his antics which also lead the clues to solve the mystery.  The reader will want to shout at Mac to pay attention to what the dog is telling him.  Gnarly and Mac make a great team.  There's enough undercurrent of attraction between Mac and his mother's assistant, Archie, to leave the reader guessing where the relationship will go in future books.   It's Murder, My Son has a few moments will clearly appeal to the dreamer in all of us.  Mac's inheritance right after his messy divorce is one of them.  As the book unfolds, the reader will come to like Mac because his vast inheritance seems to have little effect on his sense of justice and morality.  In It's Murder, My Son, Carr immerses the reader into the lives of her well-developed characters and the secrets they're struggling to keep.