Most couples expecting their baby in two weeks would be readying a nursery, attending showers, and enrolling in prenatal classes. Not Alice and her boyfriend, Joe, in Kat Ailes's uber-witty debut, The Expectant Detectives. Instead, they move, along with their beautiful but dumb dog, Helen, into a house they saw online in a small Cotswolds town they've never visited.
They choose the "quiet market town" of Penton with its "posh hippy" vibe; it sounds safer and less expensive than London, about three hours away. Ailes's energetic, breezy style immediately establishes the personalities of Alice and Joe, who've been together just over a year. They do love each other and dote on Helen, despite her penchant for throwing up and burying spoons, but they are unprepared for parenthood, admitting to being "disorganized bordering on the chaotic."
Even before unpacking in the (naturally) too-small house, the couple joins a prenatal "crash course," held in an herb shop. Alice and Joe, while desperately needing to get serious about the pending birth, hope to make friends with other like-minded, unprepared expectant couples. Asked what she is most excited about for the birth, Alice mumbles: "the snacks?" During the second class, one woman gives birth while the store's co-owner is murdered downstairs. Alice joins other mothers-to-be in an investigation, fearing a neighbor or a resident of a nearby commune could be the murderer.
Ailes's strong sense of humor drives this clever novel--she includes a laugh-out-loud birthing scene--while keeping mildly violent scenes serious. --Oline H. Cogdill, freelance reviewer