Alice and her friends are enjoying their maternity leave with their now one-year-old babies. While enjoying a leisurely picnic, the friends befriend members of an environmentalist group and soon find themselves participating in one of their protests. Of course, murder ensues, but this time the investigation threatens to divide the friends, as it puts Hen’s job at risk and goes against the wishes of Alice’s husband.

Dead Tired started off slower than the first book in the series, but I held out hope that this installment would be as good as the first, and it ended up being pretty close. Alice cracks me up. She is such a great protagonist, and I absolutely love her dog, Helen. I also loved the complexity of this mystery–with so many characters, each with their own histories and potential motives, I was figuring it all out right along with Alice.

Alice and her friends Poppy, Ailsa, and Hen are on their second case in DEAD TIRED. It takes place a year or so after their first. Three of the four are still on maternity leave though Hen has found a job as the personal assistant to Owen Myers, the CEO of Aether - a green energy firm interested in wind power.

The ladies, along with their one-year-olds and their dogs, are picnicking in a local meadow when they encounter two nude protestors named Leila and Raven who are upset that the meadow will soon become the site of a wind farm. Naturally, this also upsets Ailsa who is the most ecologically minded of the group and who convinces the others - minus Hen - to attend a meeting of the protest group and take part in their upcoming sit-in and be chained to the old growth trees that are in danger of being destroyed.

However, the protest doesn't go quite as planned. Morning comes and Leila is found strangled to death and still chained to her tree. Though Hen encourages them to leave the investigation to the police in the form of Ailsa's sister Jane Harris, they find themselves getting involved and investigating the protest group and the company Hen works for.

I enjoyed this humorous mystery filled with messy babies, unruly dogs, and very tired women. Alice's viewpoint fills the story with humor of the self-deprecating kind. She's just trying to keep her son Jack and dog Helen under some kind of control and keep them from eating inappropriate things. She is dragged reluctantly into investigating to help her friend Poppy who had been edging into depression but who perks up at this excuse to use her brain.

Fans of the first book and even newcomers will enjoy meeting this engaging group of new mothers who add murder investigations to their plans for their maternity leaves.

I loved this story. It is a great cozy for the beach. The Moms are funny and real in dealing with Motherhood and babies. the dogs add a bit of humor also. Lots of surprises and false leads to keep you guessing.

This review is for DEAD TIRED by Kat Ailes, the second installment the Expectant Detective Mysteries series.

The first installment (aka The Expectant Detectives) introduces us to a group of pregnant ladies in the less than bucolic countryside a train's ride away from London. When there is a murder during a prenatal class (where one of the ladies has gone into labor!) protagonist Alice and friends are intent on solving the case before they give birth too.

Book #2 takes place a year later when the new moms meet a group of environmentally-inclined protestors and not one, but two murders are in store for them to solve! The setting of Penton is rich and Ailes really plays on a summer heat wave, ratcheting up the temperature alongside the tension. The story is lots of fun with well-developed characters (not least of which is Alice's long-maligned and ill-behaved dog, Helen). With plenty of suspicious characters and red herrings, she'll have you guessing at whodunit right up until the end.

Maybe I'm biased because of the quintessential British setting, but I suspect if the queen of classic mysteries, Agatha Christie herself, were to write a mystery today, it would look exactly like this.

Such a fun read. Alice is such a hot mess, but so entertaining and with a surprisingly strong moral center. Her friends are still such a mystery (give us something, Ailsa!), but hopefully more will slowly be revealed in later books. The mystery was very strong and had me guessing the whole time - really entertaining.

I received a copy of this book from Minotaur Books.

A year after becoming entangled in a real life murder mystery, Alice is struggling her way through parenthood with a lot of snacks and caffeine to keep her going. Thankfully, she’s not alone in this new sleepless life because she has Joe and her close friends in Penton. It’s why Alice finds herself part of a protest, getting chained to a tree, and stumbling her way into a whole new murder mystery. Now Alice and company are on the scent with Helen and the babies in tow.

I absolutely love this series. We follow Alice, a first time mom who is still new to paying attention to her eco footsteps. What I love about Alice and her friends is that they don’t always know what they’re doing. They’re fumbling around and figuring out investigating on the fly, which makes it more realistic on top of being absolutely hilarious. They touch the evidence they come across, look forward to finding out what the lead investigator has on file, and they get caught up in new gossip surrounding the people they’re investigating. This time around, we see Alice find herself getting chained to a tree only to doze her way into a new murder mystery a year after helping solve the first one.

We have our regular cast of characters from the previous book with a whole new cast of characters thrown into the mix. Alice and most of her friends find themselves getting a little involved with a local group of protesters who are in a weird phase at the moment. This local group is where most of our new characters come in, which lead to some hilarious moments, like baby Jack having a grand time at the worst of times.

One of the things I like about this book is that no one really knows what they’re doing with the investigation and as new parents. There’s a good balance between the serious tones and hilarious moments so that things aren’t bleak. We see that everyone is struggling in their own way, new parent or not, and that Alice is only going along with the investigation because it’s the first time that Poppy has perked up in a year. We also see the emotional toll of everything on Alice, especially as we get closer to the end of the book.

My only complaint is that we hardly hear about Joe’s dad and the commune. I understand that it’s a separate storyline, but ever since Joe learned who his father was, I was expecting his dad and the commune to play a bigger role in this book. I found it kind of weird that the first time it was even mentioned was around halfway through the story even though Joe was hoping to get to know his dad, and now brother, ever since he learned he was going to be a father himself. We never learned how Joe’s relationship with his dad is going, but we do learn that he’s developed a friendship of sorts with his brother even though we don’t see or hear from him until later. It just seemed kind of weird, so I’m hoping that this is covered more in the next book.

All in all, I really enjoyed this story and getting to know more of the characters. It was nice to see Hen come back around after she understandably dipped for a bit from the group in the series opener. I do think it was really weird that Joe’s dad and his commune were barely mentioned, but I was happy to see his brother again.

The second book in the Expectant Detective series. The ladies are now moms of 1yr olds and continue their amateur sleuthing during maternity leave when an environmentalist is murdered at a protest. Laugh out loud funny and so many relatable moments for me as a mom. I enjoyed the environment aspect and discussion around finding balance of sustainability in today's modern world. Highly recommend if you like mysteries!

I have been provided with a review copy of this title from NetGalley for an impartial review. This was just a great read. I just had so much fun reading this story.

Alice continues to stumble over bodies in this second book by Kat Ailes. Alice and her friends have had their babies are enjoying their maternity leave as well as any woman with no sleep and child attached to breast nonstop would, by getting a little involved in a bit of light protesting. When one of the protestors doesn’t make it through the night, solving the crime might just be what best friend and postpartum depressed Poppy might need. As ever Alice is unfailing awkward and her dog Helen a disaster, but between them and the rest of the crew, they will persevere! I only wish I’d had friends like these when my children were babies. A fun read for mums, dog lovers, and mystery solvers.
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for this DRC.
#DeadTired #NetGalley

I loved The Expectant Detectives, so I was thrilled to see there was a follow up by Kat Ailes. Once again, she did not disappoint! As a mother of two young children, a lot of one liners and quips certainly hit their mark. This was the perfect combination of humor and whodunnit!

Four youngish moms meet in prenatal class. They become fast friends and discover how they meet other's that are often Dead Tired. Instead of enjoying their maternity leave, they find themselves in unusual situations that often involve the local authorities. But these ladies love a good mystery as well as the rest of us and they are not afraid to ask questions.
I enjoyed the way Kat Ailes wrote Dead Tired with mystery and humor wrapped intricately around.

The second adventure of the Expectant Detectives; now it's a year on and the babies are toddlers, but the hilariously ill-assorted group of friends are thrown into another murder when they join a group protesting the clearing of a local meadow to build a wind farm. The witty, snarky humor of the preceding novel again features here and makes this 'cozy' a lot of fun to read. The characters make the novel, and although the perpetrator of the murder may not be difficult to guess, the unraveling of the mystery by the young mothers and their longsuffering cohorts entertains and amuses. Here are just a few of my favorite quotes from the book:
1. Raven was there, of course, and looking exactly as I expected a protestor to; tatty patchwork waistcoat over a faded black T-shirt, and jeans that had gone way past distressed and looked frankly distraught.
2. I loved Penton and had wholeheartedly embraced my new country lifestyle (well, maybe not wholeheartedly, more of a slightly awkward embrace where a handshake might have been more appropriate)
3. Jack was awake at 5:30, not out of any kind of excitement--he's one, his understanding of the concept of 'birthday' is nil--but just because he's a baby, and babies are knobs like that.
4. "And you brought your baby. How nice." I wasn't sure what to say to that, I'd had very little choice in the matter; short of popping Jack in a station locker I had very few options.
I recommend this one to readers who like their mysteries puzzling rather than dark, and their humor sarcastic and witty rather than broad. I found it delightful.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy. This was the second in a series. I enjoyed the first book, I feel this one fell a little short. The story was entertaining, but I felt like it was rather anticlimactic.

Dead Tired picks up about a year after the end of The Expectant Detectives with our protagonist, Alice, and her crew of other mothers intertwined in a new mystery. This time, it is two murders attached to a shadowy green energy firm and the Earth Force, a pro-environment protest group, who is trying to stop a wind farm from destroying a meadow.

I had mixed feelings about The Expectant Detectives as I felt it dragged until the last 50 pages. This book, however, feels a lot more tightly edited and better-paced. The two murders are spread across the story, so the tension builds and then builds again, but it is still firmly a cozy mystery that isn't going to ramp up your anxiety! Ailes has set the book up for additional entries in the series and with the improvements in this offering, I think I'll stick with it.

My only real complaint is that I just don't get Joe's framing in either book. Does Joe like/love Alice? Does Alice like/love Joe? I know this isn't a romance, so I'm not expecting a full accounting of their relationship, but the books have weird "I hate my significant other" vibes at times. I don't know if Ailes' painted herself into a corner in the first book with their rushed relationship, but I'd rather have nothing about their relationship mentioned than the bits and pieces we get in this book, especially.

* Thank you to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review! *

Dead Tired is the second in the Expectant Moms Detective Series. In this book, the babies are 1 year old and the Moms are still getting used to being Moms.
They join a group to protest bulldozing an ancient copse. They are chained to trees overnight. When it is light, a woman is discovered strangled across from Poppy.
Alice and her friends get involved in the case. They are a disparate group and unlikely friends but they manage to find out the truth.
An interesting series, an enjoyable mystery- sometimes you need a light cozy murder mystery and this book fits that niche.

This is different to other murder Stories. Here a a group ofwomen with Babies. And they still have the time to solve a complicated murder. Easy to read and entertaining.

Dead Tired is a cozy British mystery about a group of mom friends on maternity leave who solve small town murders (all with babies and misbehaved dogs in tow. )

Ailes captures the early days of motherhood with dry humor through the POV of Alice, a likable first-person narrator prone to landing in awkward situations. It comes as no surprise when she and her friends find themselves in the middle of yet another murder investigation. This time it involves an environmental activist group, a talented young photographer and a green energy company.

I enjoyed the antics of this unlikely group of crime-solving friends; I couldn’t help laughing as I remembered my own early days as a mom. The way Alice describes breastfeeding and infant birthday parties is SPOT ON.

This is the 2nd book in a series, and if I had a do-over, I would read book 1 first. It still works as a standalone, but there a number of references to book 1 that would have helped me better understand the characters and the dynamics of Alice’s friend group. I plan to go back and read book 1, and I hope we get another installment in this series!

My first thought is that this book was so much fun to read! I love cozy mysteries and this was one of the good ones. As a mother myself, I could completely relate to how tired the moms were, and I found myself jealous that I didn't have a group of friends like Alice's to solve mysteries with when my kids were little. The characters were great and very relatable, as mentioned, and the story was well written. The mystery took lots of twists and turns and had me guessing who the murderer was all the way to the end. I hadn't read the first book in the series when I started this one, but I was easily able to follow along with who was who and how they related to each other. I enjoyed Dead Tired so much, I'm definitely going to go back and read it now, though.

All in all, I enjoyed this book very much and highly recommend it.

5/5 stars.

*** I would like to thank NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Kat Ailes for the opportunity to read and review Dead Tired.

3.75 Stars
This was a fun book! I read The Expectant Detectives and wasn't at all sure it would be my kind of book when starting, as I usually go for a little more of a serious tone in my murder mysteries. But I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it, so jumped at the chance to read Dead Tired.

The group of friends that met in their prenatal class are back, but the babies are all about one year old now. They still are all living in a small town a few hours away from London and several are still on their one year maternity leave (had no idea a YEAR was the norm in the UK!). Once again there is a murder and these Moms are right there when it happens. As they start digging into the crime, they are often bringing along their babies, with mostly comical fallouts. Thankfully the hilarious dogs are also included!

As a friend said after I told her about the first book, we can all use some comic relief! This book definitely provides this, and it is a recommended read. I don't think it is one that you should read as a standalone, though, so plan accordingly.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

3.5 stars

Dead Tired follows a group of young mothers in their second adventure after they solve a mystery while they are pregnant.

Part of the appeal of the first book was the hilarious outtakes on pregnancy. This time around they are all exhausted mothers of active toddlers and their struggles are no less humorous.

The women are both sleep-deprived and trying to feel normal while bogged down in a diaper and baby barf existence. They become involved with a local ecological protest group and it's not long before the first body turns up.

The mystery is fun, but the big draw is the mommy interactions. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.