Dead Tired (The Expectant Detectives, #2)
by Kat Ailes

All the soon to be babies from the first book have been born and and Alice and her friends (they are her friends aren't they, sometimes Alice isn't sure) are dealing with one year olds who keep any of them from sleeping at night. At least Alice has her partner to help out with baby Jack. One of her friends is single, with twins, another of her friends seems to be down since the birth of her baby, and Hen, perfect, perfect Hen, is now working for an eco friendly local company that wants to do something very un eco friendly. While Hen works, the others watch over her baby for her. Alice is very shady in the way she makes Hen's baby look pristine at the end of the work day...Alice has a LOT of shortcuts in life although they don't always take her where she meant to go.

I will admit that I was less interested in the actual mystery than in laughing at Alice and company attempt to get through early motherhood. Add to Alice's motherhood woes the fact that she's yet to have mastered pethood with her unruly dog, Helen, and it seems Alice is pretty much a mess all the time. I mean, a literal mess, along with her mess of a kid and mess of a dog. Her house is a mess, her beat up car is a mess, nothing about Alice is clean or well put together. Never having had kids and knowing if I had ever had a kid it would have been enclosed in bubble wrap until its twenty fifth birthday, Alice makes motherhood seem both very unsanitary (surely I'm not telling parents anything they didn't know), exhausting (ditto), and possibly not at all books, TV, and your friends make it look. Or it could just be Alice...I don't know.

So when Alice and her eco minded friends do a wee bit of eco protesting, jumping in feet (or torso first) by getting chained to trees, they end up being present for a murder! Everyone is uncomfortably asleep when the murder happens so no one saw the murder but it is certainly causing a ruckus in this tiny Cotswold community. So of course, Alice and company are going to solve this murder despite the fact that Alice's partner put a nix on her ever solving murders again. What to do, what to do...guess what Alice does! Jam and whatever else stained baby, Jack, unruly Helen, and totally unorganized Alice have been bamboozled by her eco friends to do a lot of the dirty work in this murder solving caper. For me the fun is in the little things, the justification of McDonalds more often than is healthy or eco friendly, and Alice being shocked when the most militant of her eco friends turns to disposable diapers. What is the world coming to?!??!

Pub Jun 4 2024

Thank you to St. Martin's Press | Minotaur Books and NetGalley for this ARC.netgalley netgalley-2024192 s50 comments Liz2,368 3,229

Dead Tired, the second in the Expectant Detectives series, is just as humorous as the first. I found myself chuckling out loud numerous times while reading this.
The babies are all now about 1 year old and the mothers have all remained friends. Alice’s dog, Helen, hasn’t calmed down at all and continues to provide much of the comic relief. On a picnic together, the mothers meet two nude protestors and accept their invitation to a meeting of their environmental group. That leads to them agreeing to chain themselves to some trees overnight in hopes of finally getting a full night’s sleep. But things go awry when the next morning, one of the protestors is dead - strangled. Of course, the ladies can’t just leave things to Inspector Harris and end up doing their own investigation.
I adore Ailes’ writing. She has the ability to create a fun turn of phrase. Or the perfect idea. “It’s good to have a friend who is morally superior to you in almost every aspect - it gives you someone to look up to, someone to hold you accountable, someone to lie to on a regular basis.”
She seems to just nail new parenthood - the sleep deprivation, the inability to keep a clean house or clothes, the desire for adult company and conversation. But she doesn’t stint on a good solid mystery and I had no clue who was behind the murder. I can’t wait to see what Ailes has in store next.
My thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books for an advance copy of this book.netgalley58 s19 comments megs_bookrack1,824 12.2k


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