The Last Songbird

March 1, 2023

DEBUT Songwriter wannabee Adam Zantz is the regular Lyft driver for faded singer/songwriter icon Annie Linden. When he arrives at her estate for a scheduled pick-up, he finds Annie's bodyguard murdered in her seaside cottage. Hours later, Annie's dead body washes up on shore. Police deem it a suspicious death. Annie was good to Adam, encouraging his songwriting. Since Adam previously worked for a private detective, Annie had mentioned she would like him to track down certain items from her past, but never specified which items. Could they be related to Annie's murder? Adam feels compelled to investigate, despite the police's supposedly open-and-shut case against Annie's on-again, off-again personal assistant, Bix Gelden, who wrote her threatening letters when she last fired him. However, Adam is certain Bix is innocent. As Adam questions people close to Annie, he discovers she is not the humble passenger he thought he knew; rather she is just the opposite. Secrets emerge that destroy his image of Annie. VERDICT This debut mystery has a good storyline with adequate characters. However, a plot digression and Adam's amateurish song lyrics sprinkled throughout mar its even flow. Still, worth the read.--Ed Goldberg

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March 6, 2023
L.A. Lyft driver Addy Zantz, the narrator of this soulful first mystery from Weizmann (Drinking with Bukowski), is trying to reignite his songwriting career when one of his regular fares, aging music legend Annie Linden, is found dead on Hermosa Beach. Grief-stricken at the loss of not just his favorite passenger but his sole artistic supporter, Addy becomes ensnared in the investigation. Police charge Linden’s recently fired former assistant with the singer’s murder and pin Addy as an accessory. In an attempt to clear his name, Addy begins tracking down the people closest to Linden, including exes, lovers, and old mentors, hoping to unravel her complicated past and shine a light on her secrets before it’s too late. Weizmann seamlessly weaves vibrant L.A. music industry personalities into the suspenseful plot. This tense whodunit deserves a sequel. Agent: Janet Oshiro, Robbins Office.

Starred review from April 1, 2023
A moving neonoir cruise through Los Angeles, past and present. Aspiring songwriter Adam Zantz, a Lyft driver, has been shepherding aged folk/pop icon Annie Linden around the city for months, gradually growing attached to the near recluse and enjoying the magnetism of her fame, her complex personality, the way she gives meaning to his down-at-heels life. When she's found dead in a muddy ditch on Hermosa Beach with, of all things, ripped-out cassette tape entangling her neck, the police finger Annie's personal assistant, a guy Adam knows couldn't be the murderer. So, lacking the necessary set of skills almost entirely, he nonetheless decides to play detective and solve the crime himself. Behind the wheel of his beloved silver 2016 Jetta, his home away from home (his actual home, sadly, is a storage space), he creeps and speeds by turn through the streets of Malibu, West Adams, and the Valley, casing joints, interviewing suspicious friends and family, earning some socks on the jaw and even occasional gunfire for his pains. All he has to go on is the existence of a certain mystery tape and the shadow of a stranger from Annie's dark past; all he has to encourage him is a deepening, post-mortem devotion to this star who felt like the mother he lost. Adrift within the LA worlds of yoga, hot tub sales, and the music convention industry, Adam in time realizes his white-knight derring-do is a sad distraction from an emotional whirlpool that, though drawing him downward to the truth of Annie's life, also threatens to submerge him in a Pacific Ocean of amateur-gumshoe consequences. Like, say, jail time or even death. In hard-boiled language with an added layer of humor and psychological insight, Weizmann tells a tale reliant on the thrill, and pathos, of popular music. Adam's quest for truth and justice is permeated by the constant soundtrack inside his head as he moves among Weizmann's wonderfully drawn cross-section of LA types with pluck and determination, a reluctant though willing Sam Spade for the sensitive slacker in us all. At turns thrilling and poignant, this is fine, thoughtful entertainment.

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