The McLean Retirement Planning Center

Wait… could this be happening to me?”

Based on the actual book, the central danger is not simply a bad investment. It is that a person can have a financial advisor, accountant, and estate attorney—all competent—and still have serious holes because nobody is looking at the entire picture together. Your book then walks through traps involving beneficiaries, risk and reward, inflation, diversification, true returns, fees, market behavior, Social Security, fiduciary responsibility, retirement risk, estate planning, and coordination. 

YOU MAY HAVE THREE GREAT ADVISORS… AND STILL BE WALKING STRAIGHT INTO A FINANCIAL TRAP.

You have a financial advisor.

You have an accountant.

You have an attorney.

But are they talking to each other?

Three Blind Mice exposes the financial traps hiding between investments, taxes, retirement decisions, Social Security, beneficiary forms, estate documents, fees, risk, and the people you trust to advise you.

Because the most dangerous financial mistakes are often not caused by bad professionals.

They happen in the space between good professionals who never compare notes.

This book will show you where to look, what questions to ask, and how to recognize the traps before your money—or your family—gets caught in one.

Before you assume your financial house is in order… read this book.

That message goes directly to the premise of the book: three professionals can each do good work in separate “rooms,” while the family is left with the consequences of what nobody coordinated. The book describes the better standard as having the professionals read the same financial “chart,” with someone responsible for seeing the entire picture. 

You Have a Trust! But Do You Know What It Really Does?

You signed the papers. You paid the attorney. You put the documents in a folder.

And you may still be sitting on a financial mousetrap.

Three Blind Mice exposes the mistakes families often don't discover until it is too late—the trust that protects the house but creates a tax problem, the five-year Medicaid clock nobody started, the beneficiary form that overrides the will, the power of attorney the bank won't accept, and the inheritance that can accidentally cost a disabled loved one important benefits.

But there is an even bigger problem hiding underneath all of them:

Your attorney may know the law.

Your CPA may know the taxes.

Your financial advisor may know the money.

But who is making sure all three are looking at the same family?

That's the heart of Three Blind Mice.

Through real-world-style stories and 17 financial and estate-planning traps, Scott McLean shows you where families get caught, what questions they should be asking, and why having good professionals is not enough if nobody is connecting the pieces. The book itself describes that missing link as coordination—the difference between separate documents and an actual plan. 

Before You Sign Another Document, Move Another Account, or Assume Your Estate Plan Is Finished… Read This Book.



Because the most expensive trap may be the one you don't know you're already standing in.

A TRUST IS ONLY AS GOOD AS WHAT’S INSIDE IT, WHO IT PROTECTS, AND WHETHER THE REST OF YOUR FINANCIAL LIFE AGREES WITH IT.

Three Blind Mice and the Trust Trap exposes the mistakes that can turn a beautifully drafted estate plan into a mousetrap for the people you love.

The wrong trust can derail your legacy. The right questions can protect it.

You may already have a trust—and still not be protected.

The manuscript itself gives you a powerful opening image: a beautifully prepared trust binder that owned almost nothing. The problem was not bad documents; it was that the trust, beneficiary forms, account titles, tax planning, and financial planning were never properly connected. 

YOU HAVE A TRUST. BUT DOES YOUR TRUST ACTUALLY HAVE YOUR MONEY?

You paid the attorney.

You signed the documents.

You put the beautiful binder on the shelf.

And someone told you:

“You’re all set.”

But are you?

Three Blind Mice and the Trust Trap exposes one of the most dangerous assumptions in estate planning:

Having a trust does not mean you have a working estate plan.

A trust can be perfectly drafted and still fail because the house was never transferred into it, an old beneficiary form overrides your wishes, a refinance accidentally removes property from the trust, the wrong trust was chosen for the family, or the plan simply became outdated as life changed.

The book makes the central point very clearly: the danger is not that trusts are bad. The danger is choosing a trust before someone understands the family, the assets, the taxes, the beneficiaries, and everything else that decision touches.

2026 Individual Tax Preparation Forms

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