An Old Man's Game

Amos Parisman Mystery #1

by Andy Weinberger

"Andy Weinberger has done something extraordinary with his first he’s written a truly great detective novel that is fresh and original, but already feels like it’s a classic. In the tradition of Walter Mosley, Raymond Chandler, and Sue Grafton, semi-retired private eye Amos Parisman roams LA’s seedy and not-so-seedy neighborhoods in pursuit of justice. I don’t want another Amos Parisman novel—I want a dozen more!”
— Amy Stewart When a controversial celebrity rabbi drops dead over his matzoh ball soup at the famed Canter's Deli in Los Angeles, retired private eye Amos Parisman— a sixtyish, no-nonsense Jewish detective who lives with his addled wife in Park La Brea—is hired by the temple's board to make sure everything is kosher. As he looks into what seems to be a simple, tragic accident, the ante is raised when more people start to die or disappear, and Amos uncovers a world of treachery and hurt that shakes a large L.A. Jewish community to its core.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Mystery Thriller, Jewish

224 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 3, 2019

Reviews

[Raphaelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

For a book about Jewish characters and a synagogue I would have expected better research. You can excuse ascribing the book of Esther to Ruth as an intentional error to show the main character's ignorance, but unless it was Yom Kippur Jews don't wear prayer shawls on Friday night. The main service of these allegedly progressive orthodox would not be on Friday either. Neither would Amos have sat in the women's section to talk to the two female parishioners . These unnecessary mistakes were irritating.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I quite liked Amos himself, his sidekick Omar, and his police dept contact Malloy. Also appreciated the Los Angeles setting.

I did feel, however, that the author laid it on a bit too heavy with all of the Yiddish so that the secondary characters came across to me as somewhat stereotypically Jewish. My main source of frustration this book had to do with a glaring factual error: Mordecai is a character in the biblical book of Esther ***NOT*** Ruth! Back when I was a kiddie, long before Oprah ever appeared on a television screen, they used to fill the time between Dark Shadows and the Edge of Night and the local news in NYC (4:30 - 6:00) with old movies, including the biblical Book of Ruth which the only four pages of text was split into two days of airing! I think I may have actually seen it twice, being fascinated with the unblemished virgins being sacrificed in the fiery furnace to the pagan god of the Moabites!

[Janet Wertman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun read - I live in Los Angeles and could visualize so many of the places he wrote about, and I'm Jewish so I could visualize so many of the people and understand so many of the issues he wrote about. Absolutely intend to move on to the rest of the series.

[Dennis Fischman · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a very old-fashioned mystery. It fails the Bechdel test completely: not only do the women characters never talk about anything but men, there's rarely more than one woman on scene, and the woman is usually a secretary or a receptionist. The one exception, a doctor, is mainly there as someone's mistress, and she gets killed, which is also typical of mystery novels from eighty years ago.

There is also a magic Negro. He happens to be Latino, not Black, but he plays the same role. And there's a self-sacrificing Latina caregiver as well, who has no personality besides working for other people.

It's a pleasure to read a mystery where Jewish settings and issues are front and center. It's anything but a pleasure when the author gets them wrong. Besides the list of errors that another reviewer mentioned, to my knowledge, no one says "le sholem" for "rest in peace." The expression I know (in similar Yiddishized pronunciation) is olov ha-sholem. Could this be a West Coast/East Coast thing? Maybe. I doubt it.

And then there's the main character's name, which should be Pariser. "Parisman" is the first name of a Vietnamese guy, not the last name of a Jew.

Finally on the Jewish front, the dead rabbi's theories are valid historical controversies, but introducing them as a way to distract from the real motive for the murders in the book feels cheap.

The construction of the whodunnit is ingenious. I don't know if I believe in the perp's psychology, but suspend disbelief and it's a good piece of plotting. The relationship between the semi-retired detective and his wife who is suffering from Alzheimer's is touching.

[Spuddie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really excellent first entry in a series featuring "retired" private detective Amos Parisman. Good balance between 'work on the case' and 'personal life' (character development) but I liked Amos right off the bat. He calls it like it is and cuts through the BS to the heart of the matter. He's hired by the council to dig into the sudden death of a rabbi from their local shul while he was eating lunch at the infamous Canter's Deli. It was ruled death by natural causes, but the leadership is uneasy as this rabbi had some controversial views and plenty of people didn't like his message and they wonder if foul play may have been perpetrated. They hope Amos can stir the police into doing a bit more investigating, and certainly in that respect he fulfilled their requirements.

Glad I've already got the second book in the series, it looks like a good one! Plenty for us older folk to appreciate.

[Mia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Entertaining but nothing exceptional here. I don’t quite understand what the backstory is going to be as the author is presenting Amos Parisian as an elderly Jewish man. He has a close connection to a policeman but we learn well into the book that he made his living as a private investigator. It didn’t seem logical or very interesting. And it seems unlikely that he could afford daily care for his wife who suffers from dementia. This is a very expensive type of care. It also is unrealistic for him to leave her alone at night. So, several things either seem unreasonable or unlikely, including the fact that it is unlikely that I would read another book in this series.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this a second time for a bookclub - October 22,2023 - Loved it even more the second time.

July 22, 2022 This was an immensely enjoyable read, especially the character Amos Parisman & his friend Omar. This book has a conversational tone which I liked. I couldn't figure out the ending - generally I can get them (because I read a lot....not because I am a brainiac). The writer did a great job in throwing me off course a number of times. The writing is great. Loads of action. I loved the relationship between Amos and his wife Loretta. The LA/Hollywood setting was a lot of fun. The Exodus revelation (from Rabbi Diamant's sermons) was new to me and had me thinking. I intend to read the next in the series.

[Eve Griliches · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read, some good laughs out loud and a great story line. Already ordered his second book.

[Peggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting cozy mystery with an unlikely main character. Amos Parisman is a retired private eye in Los Angeles. He is Jewish, yes, but he is not religious. When the president of the local temple approaches him with a job he is intrigued and takes the job. The local rabbi, who is both charismatic and controversial, dies suddenly while eating at a deli, it seems obvious that it was natural causes - heart attack, stroke, something. The rabbi was not particularly healthy, so there is no reason for the police to see the death as suspicious. But, the temple wants to be sure. Amos is hired to look into the death. The rabbi was packing them in every Friday with his controversial sermons. He was questioning the Flight from Egypt - did it really happen or was the whole Moses, plagues, wandering in the desert, and promised land a fairy tale made up to encourage the Jewish people to hold on to hope? There are many who see this kind of talk as threatening the very existence of the State of Israel. But, he was also popular - so popular that there are those who want to launch him into stardom. What could come of that? So, Amos, with his tough friend Omar, starts asking questions. As he wants to talk to the rabbi's doctor she is suddenly murdered. Why? And then a rabbinical student who was at the deli when the rabbi died vanishes and is also found murdered. Amos can't get hold of the whys. He finds a powerful Jewish businessman who backs a lot of temples and a lot of evangelical Christian churches. He was also a the rabbi's last lunch. It is an interesting book that asks questions and introduces a likeable character in Amos.

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amos Parisman is a distinctively unusual private investigator in the mystery genre: a older Jew who long ago gave up on religion, a Vietnam veteran, and a devoted husband to a wife who is suffering from dementia. The leaders of a synagogue ask Amos to come out of retirement to investigate the sudden death of their charismatic rabbi, saying they think the police have been too quick to assume it was a heart attack, and that they need to know whether it was, indeed, a tragic natural death or something more sinister -- especially because the rabbi's sermons and beliefs were controversial.

Amos isn't sure why they selected him when there are so many other (younger, healthier) private investigators they could have hired, but he accepts the job. As his inquiries proceed, a couple of more deaths occur of people Amos connected to the rabbi or the synagogue -- this time, definitely murders. Determined to get to the truth, Amos turns to an old friend in the police department for information and the two regularly communicate what they've learned to help each other move their respective investigations forward -- something that was a refreshing departure from most murder mysteries where a PI and the police typically are adversaries.

Amos is an engaging character, and his investigations take him all over Los Angeles, making the city itself a kind of character. Written in a first-person narrative, Amos is likable and relatable, and his quiet determination to get to the truth moves the well-paced story along. Some nice twists and a believable ending make this a satisfying read.

[Laura Leaney · Rating 3 out of 5]

This murder mystery evokes a retro-vibe, circa 1945 Los Angeles - although the setting is current. The PI on the scene is Amos Parisman, who is old and adorable. I like his side-kick Omar as well. The novel is quite readable in that I absolutely had to know "who done it," although some of the other characters do not seem quite realistic or they are somewhat contrived.

I loved reading a book set in LA! I know exactly where some of the action takes place and felt a little sliver of pleasurable recognition.

There are some interesting philosophical points made about religion that I found interesting. Parisman is a lapsed synogogue-attender and his police contact friend Malloy is a Roman Catholic. The crime itself involves the possible murder of an LA rabbi who is unconventional in his views on Judaism. The situation requires Amos to read through the rabbi's essays and discuss his findings with Malloy. Could the rabbi have been murdered for undermining the foundation of Jewish belief?

It is rather strange that there are nearly no female characters that mattered enough for the author to develop. Amos's wife, Loretta, is a peripheral character suffering from dementia. Anyway, just a bit odd. Still, the book was enjoyable. Light reading.

[Stewart · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fine first effort by author Andy Weinberger. It took a little bit to get into -- I almost set it down forever about a third of the way through the book -- but I'm a sucker for Jewish-spiced mysteries, so powered through and was rewarded, mostly, in the end. As a former Los Angelino, the LA setting didn't hurt, either.

Amos is a semi-retired private eye and lapsed Jew, oddly still quasi-affiliated with what appears to be a modern Orthodox shul, and he is hired after their fifty-something rabbi dies at Canter's Delicatessen to make sure everything is, ahem, kosher.

Amos was interesting enough to drive the story, though the resolution left a bit to be desired. I'd say most of the other characters were pretty thinly drawn, and the full dramatis personae needed to have some more people, particularly some more folks with motive.

Some of the other reviews note some halachic missteps, but they were not enough to ruin the experience for me. Looking forward to reading the sequel!

[Terry Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Andy Weinberger’s novel, An Old Man’s Game, An Amos Parisman Mystery, is the perfect mystery for me, evolving far beyond the one-dimensional hard-boiled detective genre. Entertaining and poignant on many different levels, the book touches on the challenges of aging, listening to heart and gut, issues around anti-semitism, discrimination, and doing what is right and not easy. Amos plays a charismatic, former LA detective brought out of retirement to help solve the mystery of a rabbi’s unexpected death. A troup of entertaining characters joins Amos - I especially liked the loyal Omar, a former wrestler Amos helped out of a jam years earlier. I loved the dry humor sprinkled throughout the novel. Witnessing Amos’s clever unraveling of the crime(s) - with an unexpected twist at the end was a joy. I just launched into the second book, Reason to Kill!

[Adele Enright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really liked this story. An over-the-hill detective is called back to work a case of the death of a local rabbi. The story is centered in L.A. which is fun for me as L.A. is my hometown. The book is engrossing and entertaining. I enjoyed reading about the Jewish community portrayed in the book. I like the push-pull in the story of the detective being a Jew who is not so sure he believes anymore and is non-observant. My only complaint and it's minor, is that I think there should have a little more tension, suspense, or danger in the story. All-in-all it was a fast, fun, entertaining read.

[Dianne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very noir-ish (if there is such a word) and very fast read. Very reminiscent of something written in the '40s or '50s and updated to add cel-phones to it.
I just finished a string of Jeffery Deaver books, so it was a little difficult for me to get myself to this level, but once I did I found the book enjoyable and they mystery nice and twisty and shocking.

The only issue I had is that I wasn't sure if this was the first book in a series (it is) since the author plops you right into Amos' life, and in a way that was a bad thing for me.


*ARC supplied by the publisher

[Adam Spencer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this book for a book club. It was a nice change of pace from a normal detective/mystery novel. Normally, main characters in those books can be shot seven times, blown up in an explosion, punched dozens of times and keep going strong.

This main character, Amos Parisman, is an older man, as implied by the title. There are no gunshots fired during the main action and the mystery takes its time unraveling. I'd definitely read another book by Andy Weinberger.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Andy Weinberger (in his creation of a private investigator) is recognized as comparable to the very best authors of mystery genres going back to Raymond Chandler and others and I would add Dashiell Hammett and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as well. The fact that the physical setting is in the section of Los Angeles (with even some of it in Culver City) that I grew up around adds to the intrigue. So, no spoilers, just read it. I am very much looking forward to the next in the series - Reason to Kill.

[Paul Henry · Rating 2 out of 5]

An Old Man's game is an easy read, with good dialogue and narration. I didn't find the plot to be all that believable, for instance, the main character graduated from U.C. Berkeley and has made a career as a P.I. Talk about an under achiever. I found the amount of information the L.A.P.D. detective shared with the P.I. to be a stretch. A defense attorney could have a field day with that. The ending was pretty preposterous too. All in all, not recommended.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice little read to get you into the Jewish world of contemporary Los Angeles, complete with chapters in Canter's Deli. There are little doses of Yiddish and big treatises of contrarian Jewish religious thought. The detective -- the "old man" of the title -- is a bit of a mash up of Sam Spade and Larry David.

My gripes (oy): the second half isn't as good as the first, plus the detective's "amigo" character is stereotypical, especially coupled with the sprinklings of trite Spanish.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

An older Jewish detective is called in to investigate the death of a rabbi. Mayhem ensues. Weinberger does a nice job of integrating Jewish beliefs into a murder mystery. Lots of Yiddish, too.

Three stars because it seems Weinberger wanted to create a plot with lots of red herrings. By the time the dust clears there are many loose ends. The last part of the book is very wordy as the loose ends are tied up.

[jim luce · Rating 5 out of 5]

First novel? ! Fabulous Christmas read. Great character development, excellent plot with twists, and for those who know Los Angeles (not necessary to enjoy the book)it is a roadmap around your City.
Please let's have more of Amos Parisman. Even a goyim can enjoy, although it would be better with a hot patrami from Canters!

[M · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun light entertaining

This is an entertaining mystery novel. Fun Jewish dialog and references, and if you live in Los Angeles or know the area it adds to the fun. Not to complicate dog a mystery plot line, but the elderly private eye sums it all up at the end without any violence.

[Mimi Stein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved Amos and his relationship with his wife, Loretta, and his mentorship of Omar, his sidekick and muscle from
Boyle Heights. As an Angeleno, I appreciated the way Weinberger covers the geography of city, too. Amos is an unusual protagonist. He’s a male, ex-Jewish, Los Angeles current-day version of Miss Marple! it’s refreshing, and exactly right.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not usually a mystery reader, but I read this for a book club, and it was an alright read. Technically good, but not the best writing ever. Seemed like the plot was just a delivery system for the idea that religion/spirituality can still be important even if you don't take scripture literally. It also seemed explicitly anti-Zionist.

[Eden Spencer · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was very clearly written by someone who had never written a book before, which is ok. I felt sort of like the main character didn’t take his detective work too seriously in the same way the author didn’t take writing a book too seriously, he just wanted to write a book. Wouldn’t read another from this author.

[Rocelle Shulman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful first novel.Please don't stop at one .Please publish more of this

one so my husband can also read in hardcover! I want to read more Amos novels. Rochelle Shulman avid reader

[Eleanor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was initially skeptical about this mystery, written by the owner of Reader's Books, the independent bookstore near where my parents live in Sonoma. I was concerned that it would be littered with detective cliches. In the end, however, I was charmed by it. A satisfyingly quick read.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was interesting to read as told from the perspective of a Jewish retired detective and to see the variety of ways characters believed in and lived out their faith. Not bad as a murder mystery either. The few instances of the f-word in the dialogue felt out of place, out of character. All in all, enjoyable, a good 3.25 :)

[Diane Blattner · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really fun read with great characters. I struggled a bit with some of the Yiddish words, even though I was brought up hearing them, so there was a lot of stopping to look things up so that I did not miss context or idiom. The story was great and overall a fun read

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good mystery. Main character is a sweet older man. Interesting cultural setting: Jewish in SoCal. It really threw me, though, when the main character confused Ruth and Esther. My hometown got a legit mention as an Amtrak station: yay Martinez!