A whodunit investigated by new moms. This one involves a protest group that chains themselves to trees. One of the protesters is found strangled.

Now that Alice and her friends have one year olds and are almost done with their mat leave, Alice should be catching up on sleep and getting ready to go back to work, but instead she and her friends somehow end up chained to a tree for an eco-protest and when they wake in the morning (still chained to the tree) one of the protestors has been murdered. As the second in the series, Alice and her friends (and their dogs) are back solving murders, but this time they have toddlers in tow.

Like the first novel, this one was super cute (and the audio with the British accent was fun to listen to - I actually love listening to this series on audio). The characters have a great dynamic together and the writing is so witty. This sequel reads very much like the first (although not quite as strong), so if you enjoyed the wit and pace of the first novel you will like this one as well (my personal opinion is that the babies were written a bit younger than their age but it’s a minor quibble). I do think that this is a series where the reader benefits from reading the first book as it really is a continuation of the first (like the Finlay series) and may be a bit confused if picked up as a stand-alone. I will be waiting expectantly (pun intended) for the next addition in the series.

3.75 stars rounded to four

Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur books for the ARC to review

“Dead Tired” is the hilarious sequel in “The Expectant Detectives” series. I just love everything about these books - the cast of characters, Alice’s relatability, the humor, the English countryside setting, the surprising mystery, and Helen!! (the dog sidekick) Of course. I cannot wait to see how this series continues.

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC.

Kat Ailes’ "Dead Tired" is a delightful and witty addition to her charming mystery series, offering an amusing and engaging story that perfectly blends the trials of new motherhood with the thrills of amateur sleuthing.

Alice, now a year into motherhood with her son Jack, longs for some much-needed rest. Alongside her group of new mom friends, she finds an unlikely opportunity for relaxation by joining an eco-protest, chaining themselves to trees. However, their plans for a peaceful respite are shattered when a fellow protester is found strangled the next morning.

Ailes crafts a captivating mystery set in a quaint English countryside village. The plot is both clever and humorous, filled with quirky characters, including rogue artists and an enigmatic local entrepreneur. The addition of nude (optional) protesting adds a layer of hilarity that keeps the tone light despite the murder at the center of the story.

Alice, whose previous success as an amateur detective (solving one out of one cases) fuels her enthusiasm, assembles her gang of new moms to tackle the latest mystery. Their determination and camaraderie are endearing, and their unique approach to crime-solving—balancing diaper changes with detective work—adds a refreshing twist to the genre.

The novel’s pacing is well-managed, keeping readers engaged with a mix of suspense and humor. Ailes’ writing shines in her ability to create relatable, multidimensional characters while maintaining a playful and entertaining narrative. The challenges of motherhood are portrayed with authenticity and warmth, making the protagonists all the more lovable.

While some plot points may stretch believability, the overall charm and wit of the story more than compensate for these minor issues. "Dead Tired" is a thoroughly enjoyable read that will appeal to fans of cozy mysteries and anyone looking for a lighthearted, fun escape.

In summary, "Dead Tired" is a delightful romp through murder and motherhood, showcasing Kat Ailes’ talent for blending humor, mystery, and the everyday challenges of being a new mom. It’s a must-read for cozy mystery enthusiasts and those looking for a charming, laugh-out-loud adventure.

Alice and her "mums group" are back! Alice, Hen, Alisa, and Poppy are picnicking in a meadow when they meet two naked environmentalists. They tell the group they are there to protest the removal of a 500 year old Chestnut thicket. Aether, a wind farm developer, and it turns out Hen's employer, wants to develop the area. The women join the protest and chain themselves to trees. The next day, Alice finds a woman protester dead, still chained to a tree. The women decide to investigate the murder.

While the mystery of whodunit is engaging, the real draw to the story are the mums. Kat Ailes has created a delightful group of characters. These women are finding their way and learning to be parents. Alice is the most fun, she just can't seem to get it together, her house, car and clothing are a mess. Did I mention, she is also sleep deprived, dealing with baby, Jack? Alice also has to deal with Helen, her rather mischievous dog. Helen and her antics add so much fun to the story.

I highly recommend reading the first book, The Expectant Detectives, to learn how Alice, Hen, Poppy and Alisa got to be friends. There are also more of Helen's antics to enjoy! This series would make a fun TV show!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, Minotaur Books, for an ARC. The review is my own.

Kat Ailes returns with a bang! This story is laugh out loud funny in so many places. The characters are wonderful and relatable. Every new mom can nod and say that was me at some point. The plot is ingenious as once again readers are kept in the dark until the big reveal. This is a book that I would highly recommend to everyone.

I had such a fantastic time reading this book! I loved the first and I was really looking forward to spending more time with these detectives who were pregnant, but have had their babies now. And watching them navigate early parenthood while dealing with the mystery? So much fun!

I really enjoyed the cast of characters from the first book and I'm so happy for all the ones that came back, all the friends that she made in the birthing class. That they get pulled into another case, this time while caring for their young children, yeah, I loved to read it!

This case was complicated and crazy, going in all sorts of places. That it starts off with a eco-protest, well, that opens up so many possible suspects, and I had a great time watching them find these leads and figure out where they went.

How things came together was really good and clever again, I really enjoy her writing and crafting of mysteries and the ending really paid off, and made me so glad that I had read this book. I had a great time, and I do hope that we continue on, though maybe branch out a bit because we don't want to empty out this small town of everybody!

Loved reading this book and I can't wait to continue on with this series!

I had to DNF. I think this author just is not for me. I have a hard time with the whiny narrator and I am just finding myself not wanting to pick this up.

Book #2 in the Expectant Detective series finds Alice and her friends dividing their time between raising their now one year old children and finding another murderer.

Alice and the gang are enjoying a picnic in the park when two nude protestors invite them to join their cause. Finding themselves agreeing, they chain themselves to a tree overnight only to wake in the morning to find a protestor dead.

As they begin to investigate, they discover the likely culprit could endanger the stability and wellbeing of one of their own.

I made sure to read the first book before listening to the second in the series. I believe Dead Tired could be read on its own but I would encourage you to enjoy the first book as well! Can’t wait to see what Alice and her friends run across next!

With young kids you grab your "me" time wherever you can find it and Alice uses her "me" time detectoring the murders of two people she barely knows. But she is pretty good at it. I love the sarcastic humor and the real life with a one-year-old and friends. I had no clue as to the baddie, actually I had a lot of clues but didn't put it together, till the very end.

Sleep deprivation, continuous laundry and a house that could almost qualify as a bio-hazard zone. Welcome to the world of new parenting. Alice loves her son, Jack, and partner, Joe, but life is tough for a young mum. She and her friends solved a murder case a year ago before the babies were born and now the group has another murder to spark the little gray cells. When the gang get involved in an eco-protest to save a meadow and old growth trees, the last thing they expected was a member of the group to be murdered while chained to a tree.

Suspects abound and clues are nil. This is going to take some deep investigative work on the part of Alice and her new mom friends. Lots of people have motive, few have means and when a second body drops, could the two murders possibly be connected?

My thanks to the Publisher and the Author, for providing a complimentary digital Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this novel via NetGalley. This is my fair, honest and personal review. All opinions are mine alone and were not biased in any way.

Dead Tired by Kat Ailes is brimming with charming characters, including Alice's lovable dog. This fast-paced and original cozy mystery is a delightful read. Serving as the second installment in a charming and humorous mystery series by Kat Ailes, Dead Tired follows a group of new mothers who never expected their maternity leave to involve so much murder.

Dead Tired by Kate Ailes is the second in her cozy mystery series featuring first, pregnant women, and now, young mothers. Motherhood comes more easily to some women than to others. Alice is the primary character, along with baby Jack; Helen, the dog; and Joe, her partner. They had barely had a relationship when they found themselves pregnant and moving out of London. Alice met her other friends at a prenatal class: Hen, the perfect mom; Ailsa, the single mother of twins; and Poppy, who had not been herself lately. Between these four the reader gets a pretty good picture of the first year of motherhood. On a picnic they met a couple of protestors, both naked in full body paint, they wanted to save the very ancient woods that the woman were picnicking on the edge of. Ailsa convinced them to become marginally more active with this group and before too many days two of the group’s number had been murdered. Despite exhortations from every direction to stay out of it, the women began to investigate. At the very least, the investigation seemed to bring Poppy back to life.

It was a complicated story with plenty of suspects. The problem was, most everyone was chained to a tree at the time. And it was dark. It took some being nosey and meeting new people to figure it out. This story is full of well-written, interesting characters, with whom any woman will identify. It is highly entertaining and, aside from murders, real life. The mothers exemplify all the trials of having a baby in one’s home, from the changes in one’s body and relationships, to the mind-numbing exhaustion and the definite change in one’s priorities. On someone else it is hilarious. It is worth the read for nothing more than these things, and yet, there is a credible mystery and investigation here, as well. It is amusing, thrilling, and gut-wrenching. Give it a try!

I was invited to read Dead Tired by St Martin’s Press. All thoughts and opinions are mine. #Netgalley #StMartinsPress #KatAiles #DeadTired

This is the second book in the series and it picks back up a year later with Alice and her mom friends. They get tangled up in another murder mystery and this time are trying to figure out who did it with the added distraction of their one year old children. I loved the crazy antics of the group and really loved seeing how their friendships are evolving from new acquaintances in the first book to friends in the second book. This would make a great summer beach read.

This book was a lot of fun. I enjoyed the first one. 4 unlikely friends find themselves in the middle of yet anther murder investigation. I love the dynamics of all the different ladies, and their dogs and babies! This book is funny and interesting! Don't forget to check it out!

This is such a fun cozy mystery series! After the first book, I didn't think Alice's life could get any more chaotic but with the addition of her son Jack on top of Helen things things definitely were crazier than before.
Alice and her friends get quite shocked while picnicking in a meadow when two people approach, and they are naked. well, they do have paint on them. These two are part of a group protesting the destruction of the meadow, and Alice and her friends get roped in to going to some meetings and participating in an event where they find the body of one of the protesters.

Kat Alice does an amazing job bringing these characters to life! I loved thier friendship and they had me laughing out loud on every page. The mystery was well written and kept me on the edge of my seat, and I didn't want to put it down until I was finished. I hope that we get more books in this series and I will definietly be reading whatever else Kate Ailes writes!

🕵‍♀️ DEAD TIRED (Expectant Detectives #2) by Kat Ailes 🕵‍♀️

Release Date: June 4, 2024 (thanks to @netgalley and @minotaur_books for the ARC)

For readers who:
- love the Finley Donovan series
- need a good book about new moms
- like mystery/thriller books with a heft dose of humor
- like to invest in a series

Synopsis: Alice and her mom friends, Poppy, Ailsa and Hen, are not expectant mom detectives anymore. Now they're just moms, without a side of investigation. That is, until they find themselves taking part in a protest (chained to a tree all night long - they're even offered adult diapers 🥴), and they wake up to find one of the protesters has been, well, deleted. Suddenly the monotony of new motherhood is broken up as they start investigating 🔎

My Thoughts: I really enjoyed the first in the series (swipe to see it) and I was excited that this one was being released so soon. This series is right under the Finley Donovan series for me. Funny, a good mystery, and a delightful cast of characters.

Add this one to your summer list ☀️

I love this series., whether it's the antics of Helen the dog or Alice and her friends "dectectoring". Their theory is that dectectoring is all about just stumbling around until you find something, and reading/listening to their stumbles is entirely amusing. The first book in the series, The Expectant Detectives is hilarious, but the new moms as sleuths might be even better. I hope that the group continues to stumble onto dead bodies. because they're my current favorite detectives, the kind I can see myself being friends with.

It’s been a year since four women forged an unlikely friendship amidst giving birth to their first children and solving a murder mystery in their small, English village. Now Alice and her friends have become swept up in another murder case. What begins as a picnic lunch between friends and their toddlers leads to an invitation to join a peaceful protest, which in turn leads to being witnesses in another murder investigation. 
 
Alice had thought maternity leave would be full of nursing and nappies, not more murders to solve. 
 
What a fun cozy mystery! Ailes captures both the humor in the everyday humdrum of raising a small child—from creative methods of unclogging blocked ducts to the absolute mess some children make (and the air of mystery surrounding those children that manage to keep their smocked and monogrammed clothing pristine)—as well as the emotions and feelings of disconnect from an earlier sense of self that can come with those early stages of motherhood. I giggled and grinned my way through this one and saw many familiar moments from my early days with kids—sans the murders of course. 
 
I received an advance copy of the book from Minotaur Books and St. Martin’s Press. All review opinions are my own.

My thanks to NetGalley and Minotaur Books/St. Martins Publishing for the ARC of "Dead Tired" in exchange for an honest review.
They're back.......and I couldn't be happier. And anyone who likes their cozy mysteries riddled with laugh out loud moments, should welcome the return of the English countryside's most unlikely group of amateur sleuths.
In their debut in "The Expectant Detectives", Alice, Poppy, Hen, and Ailsa, living amidst the bucolic green meadows and forests of the Cotswolds, somehow cracked a murder case while all of them were on the verge of giving birth. (And accomplished this much to the perpetual aggravation of Ailsa's sister Jane, the area's primary police detective.)
One year later, the ladies are coping with the exhausting, chaotic task of baby raising. but still find themselves embroiled in a fresh new murder case. How could they not? After joining an eco-protest group, their chained-to-trees-all-night demonstration ends with one of the one of protesters found strangled while still bound to their tree.
Once again, Alice (the book's narrator), ends up taking the investigative lead, even though her life is a riotous, whirlwind of diaper mishaps, breast feeding calamities, housekeeping disasters and the never ending, embarrassing misadventures of her out-of-control dog, Helen. Along the way, Alice also has to cope with Poppy's renewed detecting enthusiasm, Hen's nervous unease (since she's employed by the company targeted by the protests) and the always eye-rolling, suffer-no-fools disdain of fierce activist Ailsa,, whose twin babies only slightly softened her. just a bit.
A plentiful collection of suspects, twists and reveals round out this mystery which I found, as I did the first of this series, so much fun to read, a book that keeps you smiling throughout and at times delivers genuine LOL scenes. And personally, I can never get enough of those, so I didn't have to think twice about rating this 5 funny stars. Here's hoping the ladies are solving cases till their babies are ready to enter college....

Kat Ailes has done it again. I loved the first book, “The Expectant Detectives” and I love the second book, “Dead Tired” equally. You could read it as a standalone, but you will have a better idea of the characters and their relationships if you read it after “The Expectant Detectives”. There is a little bit of mention to what happened in the first book in this one but I do recommend reading the first one to make the story more enjoyable. Kat Ailes writes very realistic characters and situations which makes it even more so entertaining. The mystery is cleverly crafted, keeping the reader guessing until the very end. Between the antics of Alice and her friends, also nursing moms, and her dog Helen and son Jack, I was laughing out loud throughout the book! Thank you Kat Ailes, NetGalley, Minotaur Books and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of this book in exchange for my thoughts. I am looking forward to (hopefully) the next one in the series.