An Old Man's Game

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.

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.

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

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.

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. <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="dd6cbf3f-46c0-4665-8bfc-ea811c57bad4" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="dd6cbf3f-46c0-4665-8bfc-ea811c57bad4">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.</label><br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.

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.

This was an immensely enjoyable read, especially the character Amos Parisman &amp; 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.

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.<br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br /><br />*ARC supplied by the publisher

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.<br /><br />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.

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.