Set in everybody’s favorite homicide locale, suburban New Jersey, this debut crime caper by a co-creator of the comic book anti-superhero Deadpool pairs former FBI profiler and currently “47 months pregnant” soccer mom Andie Stern with her grade school crush Kenny Lee, a disgraced journo desperate to reestablish his creds. Their involvement in what will become a multilayered series of murders, dismemberments, and other hate crimes begins with Andie arriving seconds after the blatant assassination of a gas station attendant and subsequently witnessing the local cops’ literal and figurative clueless handling of the crime scene.

Reader Natalie Naudus presents Andie with her sharp tongue and innate intelligence cutting though a weariness brought on by incipient motherhood, a quartet of four wild kids, and an insultingly inattentive husband. For Kenny (“a Pulitzer at 22, disgraced by 27, irrelevant by 29”) she shifts to a voice filled with aggressive energy and false bravado. There are moments when Naudus is especially effective—Kenny’s sinking spirits in the presence of his tiger mom; Andie switching to her “original Queens” accent while chatting up her BFF. The plot is beautifully- constructed, with a payoff as hilarious as it is satisfying, but it’s the unique, well-crafted, and smartly performed characters that make this one of the year’s more entertaining audios.