Paws Before Dying — Susan Conant

MURDER STRIKES

When Rose Engleman is found dead after a thunder-storm, lightning is blamed. But soon Holly Winter starts to think it wasn't an act of God that killed the elderly woman. Was it an act of vengeance? Jealousy? Hatred? Greed? Accompanied by her malamutes Rowdy and Kimi--and her visiting sixteen-year-old cousin Leah--Holly tracks down the truth, and discovers that a retired kindergarten teacher can have a surprising number of enemies...

A DOG LOVER'S MYSTERY
Holly Winter's life is going to the dogs, but that's just fine with her. She's a feisty, thirty-something dog-lover, born in Maine and settled near Boston, and her expertise in the breeding, training, and caring for man's (and woman's) best friend is just one of her inbred talents--she's also a grand champion at tracking down criminals ...the two-legged kind.