The Last Songbird: A Pacific Coast Highway Mystery

(Paperback)

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"Blending the bright lights of celebrity and fame with the primal urges and darkness ... Weizmann is a confident, polished storyteller who honors his influences and while weaving his amateur detective through a complex mystery that will keep you turning the pages until you've reached the haunting finale. A sharp, memorable debut." -- Alex Segura, bestselling author of Secret Identity A gritty, fast-paced neo-noir that explores the consumptive nature of fame, celebrity, and motherhood through the lens of a driver lost in the gig economy. A struggling songwriter and Lyft driver, AdamZantz'slife changes when he accepts a ride request in Malibu and 1970s music icon Annie Linden enters his dented VW Jetta. Bonding during that initial ride, the two quickly go off app- over the next three years, Adam becomes her exclusive driver and Annie listens to his music, encouraging Adam even as he finds himself driving more often than songwriting. Then, Annie disappears, and her body washes up under a pier. Left with a final, cryptic text- 'come to my arms'- a grieving Adam plays amateur detective, only to be charged as accomplice-after-the-fact. Desperate to clear his name and discover who killed the one person who believed in his music when no one else in his life did, Adam digs deep into Annie's past, turning up an old guitar teacher, sworn enemies and lovers, and a long-held secret that spills into the dark world of a shocking underground Men's Rights movement. As he drives the outskirts of Los Angeles in California, Adam comes to question how well he, or anyone else, knew Annie- if at all. The Last Songbird is a poignant novel about love, obsession, the price of fame and the burden of broken dreams, with a shifting, twisting plot that's full of unexpected turns.

Reviews

"A moving neonoir cruise through Los AngelesIn 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... At turns thrilling and poignant, this is fine, thoughtful entertainment." -- Kirkus, STARRED review

"Weizmann seamlessly weaves vibrant L.A. music industry personalities into the suspenseful plot. This tense whodunit deserves a sequel." -- Publishers Weekly

"Props to Daniel Weizmann for respecting older women as artists and for his clear dedication to writing about music in an evocative and intelligent manner." -- CrimeReads

"This debut mystery has a good storyline... worth the read." -- Library Journal

The Last Songbird is my favorite kind of neo-noir - blending the bright lights of celebrity and fame with the primal urges and darkness that come with any good noir novel. Weizmann is a confident, polished storyteller who honors his influences while weaving his amateur detective through a complex mystery that will keep you turning the pages until youve reached the haunting finale. A sharp, memorable debut. -- Alex Segura, author of Secret Identity

"The Last Songbird is rock noir at its best. It sneaks up on you like a hook line, and when it's over, you can't get it out of your head. Hapless hero/songwriter Addy Zantz is witty, gritty and determined to solve the murder of his idol and muse, the legendary rock star, Annie Linden. Daniel Weizmann's L.A. is half Warren Zevon and half Raymond Chandler. Bravo. -- T. Jefferson Parker, New York Times bestselling author

Weizmann skillfully crafts a gritty, unstoppable detective thriller rife with sleaze and sea foam and broken dreams set against a crumbling LA backdrop. Its Sunset Boulevard meets Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. --Katie Tallo, author of Dark August

Weizmanns fiction is informed by his past as a highly influential and precocious young veteran of the punk scene, as well as by his lifelong passion for music, his career in journalism and his love of noir and Los Angeles. This book is funny, poetic, gripping, and beautifully tackles themes of creativity, fame and family. --Francesca Lia Block, author of Dangerous Angels: the Weetzie Bat Books

A terrific ride through the troubled, tangled lives surrounding a murdered LA music legend, told with the energy of the Germs, the urgency of X, with a captivating narrator who drives headlong in crime-fueled pursuit. --Gregory Galloway, author of Just Thieves

Propulsive and pitch perfect, The Last Songbird is a smart, fast-paced read about the costs of fame to both the spectacularly gifted and those left dazzled and dazed in their wake. In crackling prose, Daniel Weizmann masterfully takes the reader through the midnight precincts of LA to tell a gripping story of human fallibility of triumph and failure, generosity and greed, love and disappointment and the drive, against all odds, to set things right. A stunning debut. --Joan Leegant, author of An Hour in Paradise

"Daniel Weizmanns The Last Songbird is a gripping, fast-paced, neo-noir mystery whose intriguing characters populate the streets of Los Angeles.When a 70s music icon suddenly disappears, her driver and friend, begins a frantic search that leads him in pursuit of the truth.In turn, he will discover just as much about himself.Weizmann has written a smart, unforgettable, page-turner of the best kind." -- GailTsukiyama, author of The Color of Air

"Take everything you know about the noir detective and chuck it out the window of a moving car on the Pacific Coast Highway. Weizmann's Adam Zantz is a uniquely relatable amateur sleuth. His flaws and, more importantly, his empathy make him a Lew Archer for the millennial age. Fortunately, The Last Songbird only feels like the beginning." -- KyleDecker, author of This Rancid Mill

Author Bio

Daniel Weizmann is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Billboard, the Guardian, AP Newswire, and more. Under the nom de plume, Shredder, Weizmann also wrote for the long running Flipside fanzine, as well as LA Weekly, which once called him "an incomparable punk stylist." Most recently, Weizmann co-authored Game Changer by Michael Solomon and Rishon Blumberg (Harper Leadership, 2020). He lives in Los Angeles, California.