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. ( )

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. ( )