WALKING THE BOULEVARD OF BROKEN DREAMS: DANIEL WEIZMAN'S CINNAMON GIRL

The Last Songbird became one of my favorite debuts of 2023. Author Daniel Weizman followed Adam "Addy" zintz, a wanna-be songwriter and Lyft driver who is thrown into a the dark side of the SoCal music scene when a regular client, a songstress from the seventies, is found murdered. With his sophomore effort, he returns with Addy and more L.A. music intrigue.

Addy still drives with Lyft, but solving the murder in The Last Songbird pushed hin into pursing an investigator's license. While working toward it, he is asked a favor by his old piano teacher, Charles Elkain, who is dying of cancer. His son Emil was shived in the mid-eightes while awaiting trail for the murder of a a Latino teen, Rey Durazo. Devon Hawly, a Hollywood miniature artist, made arrangements to meet with Charles, telling hjm his son was innocent, then never made the appointment. Addy's search for Hawly becomes connected to a band Emil, Rey, and Devon were in,, a quasi cult from those days, and an alluring girl from their past, Cinnamon.

Weizman uses the band as a great dynamic for a mystery microcosm The surviving members serve as both the main suspects and victims as some get picked off. Through them, the book looks at the pursuit of of a collective dream and how it both built and broke them . Addy's questioning and discoveries of who they were interacts with who they are now, conjuring up a melancholy created between youth and and the life collected after it.

He continues to dive into his angle on L.A.. With Addy's P.O.V. and the personalities he runs into, Weizman creates both a paradise and purgatory for dreamers. Everybody can see the ship coming in for others, so why shouldn't the same happen for them? However, fo those who don't win, they feel more like losers . The story ties this to friendship, family, and the darker impulses that feeling can play on.

I found Cinnamon Girl to be even better than The Last Songbird. In just one book, his writing has grown more confident with a stronger sense of craft as he puts a greater focus on character. I'm looking forward to Addy's case as a licensed P.I.?