“No one wants a murder podcast about real estate.”

Can a trio of true crime podcast aficionados outwit both the cops and a killer, all while making the next hit podcast? That’s the premise behind Hulu’s new comedy Only Murders in the Building, which premiered the first three of its ten episodes Tuesday.

The three sleuths are Charles Haden-Savage (Steve Martin), an actor most famous for playing a detective on a ’90s cop show, Oliver Putnam (Martin Short), a struggling Broadway director, and Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez), an artist. All three are neighbors in the same building who discover their mutual love of the same true-crime podcast, “Everything is not OK in Oklahoma.”

The same night a fire alarm drives all of the building’s residents out, Tim Kono (Julian Cihi) is found shot in his apartment. Charles, Oliver and Mabel immediately assume its a murder and start an amateur investigation, and its accompanying podcast. As it turns out, they don’t really know what they are doing on either count.

The first problem is the each of the three have secrets that they hide from the rest of the group. Charles is insistent upon living alone, for reasons he won’t discuss. Oliver is strapped for cash and about to get kicked out of the building. And Mabel has a tragic past connection to Tim that she isn’t disclosing.

In the first three episodes, through misadventure more than skill, the trio discover enough clues to keep their investigation going, albeit in a bumbling, unfocused way. The police ruled the killing a suicide, but the threesome have reason to believe otherwise. They know from surveillance footage that no outsiders entered the building that night, but none of the residents, for all that they disliked Tim, have a clear motive.

Meanwhile, Mabel is recording her own, secret confessional video, that gives the audience a better look into just who the victim was, and who she is.

By the third episode the story is still unfolding, but the mystery (and the podcast) are almost beside the point. The chemistry between the three – wry Mabel, impulsive Oliver and standoffish Charles – is the reason to watch. The writing is terrific; the show’s first episode opens with each of the characters monologuing about life in the big city, each in their own voice with different takes. The jokes are more subtle than broad, though there are sight gags and pratfalls the comedy is more deft than slapstick.

Gomez, Short and Martin are perfect in their roles. Short avoids going too over the top, and Gomez pulls off the disaffected millennial hiding her sadness under a seemingly uncaring exterior. Martin plays Charles as timid and controlled, but with a hint of something passionate underneath promising to come out sooner rather than later.

Nathan Lane, Tina Fey and Sting (as himself!) turn up in the first three episodes; Sting is hilarious as a cranky neighbor and Lane, as a former financial backer of Putnam’s shows, gets some great lines.

Only Murders in the Building is an absolute delight, making pointed but loving fun of podcasts, amateur sleuths, building associations, bad neighbors, Broadway disasters (and Sting), and offering enough intrigue to make the show bingeable (although from here on out, only one new episode per week will be available.) The show has great art direction; the Arconia building is gorgeous and it’s easy to believe someone would kill to get an apartment there. Director Jamie Babbit (Russian Doll, another stylish New York-set mystery) inserts a number of artistic devices when presenting memories or daydreams adding another layer of mystery.

This is a Building you’ll want to movie into.