She Treads Softly: The Last Songbird

Monday, May 15, 2023

The Last Songbird

The Last Songbird by Daniel Weizmann
5/23/23; 336 pages
Melville House

The Last Songbird by Daniel Weizmann is a highly recommended neo-noir mystery set in and around Los Angeles.

Lyft driver, Adam Zantz’s life changes when 1970s music icon Annie Linden becomes a regular customer and an important part of his life for the next three years. Then Adam arrives to pick Annie up and she's not there, but the police are. Annie's body is later found later and Adam begins his own investigation into Annie's life to find out who killed her. Before her death she had asked him to look into some things from her past and he thinks this may be the key to her murder. He ends up discovering Annie is not quite the person he thought she was.

The writing is excellent and thoughtful as it captures a cross-section of LA during Adam's investigation. It also illustrates the thoughts of a struggling singer/songwriter. The narrative moves at an even pace and is told with some humor and a whole lot of psychological insight into the individuals Addy meets along the way. The mystery is interesting and the various unexpected twists and shifts in the plot make it even more compelling.

Addy is an appealing character. The various people he meets as he investigates are wildly varied and equally interesting. The Last Songbird is a very good debut and seems to clearly be a set up for more Adam (Addy) Zandt PI novels.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Melville House via NetGalley.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.