The Expectant Detectives

I received this book for free from the publisher. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The Expectant Detectives by Kat Ailes
Narrator: Kitty Kelly
Series: Expectant Detectives #1
Published by Macmillan Audio, Minotaur Books on January 9, 2024
Genres: Fiction / Mystery & Detective / Cozy / General
Length: 11 hours 27 minutes
Pages: 384
Format: ARC, Audiobook
Source: Publisher
Goodreads
Amazon | Audible | B&N | Kobo | Libro.fm

The Expectant Detectives is first in a delightful new mystery series following a group of pregnant women who meet at a prenatal class and team up to solve the murder of someone in their village.

Can she solve the mother of all murders?

For Alice and her partner Joe, moving to the sleepy village of Penton is a chance to embrace country life and prepare for the birth of their unplanned but welcome first child. He can take up woodwork; maybe she'll learn to make jam? But the rural idyll they'd hoped for doesn't quite pan out when a dead body is discovered at their local prenatal class, and they find themselves suspects in a murder investigation.

With a cloud of suspicion hanging over the heads of the whole group, Alice and her new-found friends, set out to solve the mystery and clear her name, with the help of her troublesome dog, Helen. However, there are more secrets and tensions in the heart of Penton than first meet the eye. Between the discovery of a shady commune up in the woods, the unearthing of a mysterious death years earlier and the near-tragic poisoning of Helen, Alice is soon in way over her head.

The Thursday Murder Club meets Midsomer Murders in this fresh, funny mystery about a group of soon-to-be moms-turned-detectives.

This was a fun read! Some parts of the story were rather funny and the mystery kept me guessing. Pregnancy and childbirth play a prominent role in this story and I thought it was rather entertaining to imagine a group of hugely pregnant women playing detective. I am so glad that I took a chance and decided to give this book a try.

Alice and her boyfriend, Joe, have just moved to town with their dog, Helen, and are due to have a baby very soon. They enroll in a childbirth class and not only does one student go into labor during the first session but a man dies in the shop downstairs and they are all considered suspects. Alice wants to make friends and what could be a better way to bond than solving a murder with some of the women she has met at childbirth class?

I listened to the audiobook and thought Kitty Kelly did a great job with this story. This is only the second time that I have listened to this narrator’s work and I have been impressed both times. She did a great job with the more comical moments in this story which helped to bring the story to life. I liked the voices that she used for the various characters in this story and thought that she brought just the right amount of emotion to her reading. I believe that her performance added to my overall enjoyment of this story.

I would recommend this book to others. I thought that there was a nice balance of humor and mystery in this book and I loved the fact that it kept me guessing until the end. I plan to pick up the second book just as soon as it becomes available.

I received a review copy of this book from Macmillan Audio and Minotaur Books.

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