Kat Ailes is a British author of cozy mysteries. She is the author of The Expectant Detectives and Dead Tired, and her work is known for its humorous take on community life, motherhood, and amateur sleuthing. She works in publishing as an editor, previously freelanced to allow for extended travel including hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, and now lives in the Cotswolds with her family.

Kat Ailes made her debut as a novelist in 2024 with The Expectant Detectives. Below is a list of Kat Ailes’s books in order of when they were originally released:

• Kelley Armstrong
• Nicci French
• Silvia Moreno‑Garcia

Diana Urban Synopses: In The Expectant Detectives by Kat Ailes (book 1 of the Expectant Detectives Mystery series), Alice and her partner Joe move to a quiet village hoping for a simple country life as they prepare for the arrival of their first child. He imagines taking up woodwork, and she considers learning to make jam. Their plans fall apart when a body is discovered at their local prenatal class, and the entire group becomes entangled in a murder investigation.

With suspicion hanging over everyone, Alice teams up with her new circle of pregnant friends to clear their names. Her troublesome dog, Helen, joins the effort, often complicating it. As Alice digs deeper, she uncovers more tension and secrecy in Penton than she ever expected. A strange commune hidden in the woods, a mysterious death from years earlier, and the near‑fatal poisoning of Helen all point to something darker beneath the village’s calm surface.

Soon Alice is in far over her head, trying to protect her future while untangling the past.

In Dead Tired by Kat Ailes (book 2 in the Expectant Detectives series), Alice thought her maternity leave would finally bring some rest. She and her friends had already bonded more than most prenatal groups ever do, thanks to the small matter of solving a murder together. With that behind them and her son Jack somehow already a year old, Alice is desperate for sleep. So when an eco‑protest offers the chance to chain themselves to trees and do nothing but sit still, she and her friends take it as a rare opportunity to relax. It is not comfortable, but at this point they will take anything.

By morning, any hope of a peaceful break is gone. One of the protesters is found strangled, and Alice and her friends are pulled straight back into chaos. Their search for answers leads them into a tangle of rogue artists, a mysterious local entrepreneur, and a protest movement that occasionally involves nudity. It is not the restful interlude they imagined, but it is a welcome distraction from diapers and from wrestling baby toys away from Helen the dog.

Alice’s track record for solving countryside murder stands at one out of one, and she cannot resist the chance to test her detective instincts again. She gathers her group of new moms and dives into another mystery in their not‑so‑sleepy English village, determined to uncover the truth before anyone else gets hurt.