This is a series that I have read several times before. First I read it and gave all the books to a neighbour who read them and gave them away so after a year or two I bought them all again and reread them. That time I gave them to my vet and then forgot who I gave them to until after I bought them for a third time. Somehow I had the impression that the reason I gave them away was they were not good enough to keep and then I would get curious and be reading dog mysteries and being a completist of sorts I would want to read this series and well that is the picture. It has been a good ten years since I last read this series and having just finished book one found it surprisingly good. I am looking forward to the next bunch. Each time one rereads a book one brings something different to the experience. I am older, I have read other things since, I know more and am in a different place in my life which gives reading this book an entirely different feel and pleasure.

Introducing Jackie Walsh and her crime-solving shepherd, Jake. When a beautiful Alsatian shepherd shows up in her backyard--with a bullet wound in his leg--Jackie has no intention of keeping him, despite her son's pleas. And soon the matter of the dog takes second place to her investigation of a murder at the university. #1 ( )