The Last Songbird by Daniel Weizmann

Published by Melville House on May 23, 2023

The Last Songbird has the feel of a classic mystery in a modern setting. Adam Zantz is pushing 40. He drives for Lyft on the web of LA highways. He’s also Annie Linden’s personal driver; that is, she books him off app. Adam arrives a bit late in response to her most recent call, only to find that she’s missing. The police question Adam because her security guy, Troy Banks, is dead. So is Annie, as Adam soon learns when a jogger finds her body on a beach.

Annie was a popular singer-songwriter who was nominated for a Grammy in 1974. She was 73 when she died. Adam began driving for her after his mother “went batshit” and his girlfriend and songwriting partner dumped him. He feels Annie’s loss profoundly, in part because she praised his songs. She was the last person on Earth who believed in him.

Adam was once licensed as a private detective. He spent three weeks doing Google searches for a real detective before he quit. Annie wanted him to find someone and help her piece something together, but she didn’t give him any details before she was killed.

Annie had recently fired her personal assistant. Bix Gelden had known Annie since childhood and had been fired regularly, but the police think he had a motive to murder Annie so they arrest him because he’s convenient. Adam decides to use his meager detective skills to investigate his guilt.

Adam’s search leads him to Haywood Kronski, Annie’s not-quite-ex-husband and former producer; Eva Silber-Alvarez, Annie’s spiritual mentor; her fan club president; two young people who might be Annie’s drug dealer; the man who taught Annie to play the guitar; a jacuzzi salesman; a massage therapist/yoga practitioner; and a dead urologist. Playing detective also gets him arrested. He’s repeatedly threatened, his tires are slashed, he’s on the wrong end of a car chase. The Last Songbird isn’t a particularly violent novel, but what’s a detective story without an occasional fistfight?

Every lead Adam follows turns out to be productive, usually in improbable ways. That’s common to modern crime novels. I suppose writers fear that readers will be bored if detectives chase leads to dead ends, but it’s hard to believe that a random bookmark taken from hundreds of books in a storage shed, or a bootleg concert tape purchased on impulse from a hippy, would help Adam find Annie’s killer. Chalk it up to karma? It’s LA, after all.

With a little help from the guitar teacher, Adam muses about the nature of songs and songwriting. Older readers (and younger ones who know their pop music history) will appreciate the references to songs of Annie’s era. The story also features an interesting aside about the rise of the red pill movement, a collection of misogynistic incels who blame feminists, Jews, and people with dark skin for their inability to get laid.

Adam’s encounters with people in Annie’s life leave him with conflicting impressions of Annie. Some saw her as a totem, others as a user. Adam’s view of Annie evolves as he learns her secrets. The story suggests that artistic icons are never who we expect them to be. They’re just people, with all the complexity that defines human existence. Maybe we have no right to expect them to be anything other than creators of work we admire.

The novel’s intrigue comes from being an unconventional family drama, a story of family members who worship or detest each other. Adam’s own family gives Adam a bit of drama when he enlists their support for his investigation. His sister thinks he’s a loser. As a Lyft driver pushing 40, his circumstances suggest that the perception is valid if uncharitable. Whether Adam will use the investigation as a springboard to self-improvement adds to the intrigue that drives the story.

Daniel Weizmann invokes a classic confusion of identities to bring the novel to a close. Adam’s ability to piece together vague clues to catch the killer is improbable but the story follows a thread of logic that never breaks. Adam attains an awareness of the demons that have driven his own life as he solves the murder, bringing the story to a satisfying resolution. The Last Songbird is a good choice for fans of classic mysteries.

RECOMMENDED