One Death at a Time is a fun and fast-paced cozy mystery by Abbi Waxman (4/5 stars)

One Death at a Time is a fun and fast-paced cozy mystery by Abbi Waxman.

Ex-actress (turned lawyer) Julia teams up with her Gen Z sobriety sponsor, Mason, to solve a murder she’s been accused of that could send her back (yes, back) to prison. Known to be bad-tempered, the police consider her a suspect after she wakes up to find a dead body in her swimming pool.

I listened to the audiobook via Spotify Premium and followed along in my physical review copy. Patti Murin does a great job narrating, and had me laughing several times. The author’s humor really worked for me, but Murin’s execution was great.

This is my first book by the author and it will not be the last. There’s sarcasm and black humor and I live for it. I particularly enjoyed the odd couple partnership between Julia and Mason. I’m a sucker for the found-family trope, and this book has it in spades.

There were a lot of characters in here and at times it was a little hard to keep up with who was who. I think my immersive reading helped a little there, but only so much. But I did really like all of the characters and felt that many of them still had depth.

I did enjoy the plot of the overall mystery, and it made sense to me. I loved getting to go a little behind-the-scenes of the film industry in Hollywood. Hopefully there will be more books following Julia and Mason (and the rest of their rag-tag crew) solving crimes!

If you were a fan of Killers of a Certain Age you should give this one a try! The pacing is pretty similar, though One Death at a Time definitely feels like it leans a little harder into cozy mystery genre overall.

CW: alcoholism, suicide, murder, addition, drug abuse, drug use, death, firearms, violence, fire

I received a complimentary review copy from Berkley Pub and NetGalley. All opinions contained herein are my own.

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