Die Laughing

In Die Laughing, the fourth installment of Andy Weinberger’s mystery series, readers are reacquainted with Amos Parisman—Los Angeles’s oldest, most unconventional Jewish private investigator. The plot kicks off when Al Pupik, a legendary figure from the golden age of late-night television comedy, is brutally murdered in his Hollywood home. Mainstream law enforcement quickly fixes its sights on Pupik’s former comedy partner, Benny Wolf, an aging, frail comic struggling with memory issues who believes he is being scapegoated due to an old grudge held by the police. Retained by Wolf to clear his name, Parisman plunges into the murky, nostalgic world of vintage show business, unspooling a web of long-buried rivalries, comedy-world treachery, and hidden motives across the city's rich Jewish cultural landscape.

Beyond its classic whodunit mechanics, Die Laughing is steeped in Jewish identity, humor, and tender reflections on aging and community. Parisman navigates the case with his signature warmth, measured pace, and dry Yiddishkeit wit, serving as a empathetic contrast to traditional hard-boiled detectives. Interwoven with the central investigation is Parisman’s poignant personal journey: he wrestles with grief and moral complexity as his beloved wife, Loretta, resides in a memory care facility with advancing dementia. Grounded in Los Angeles’s Jewish community and filled with rich cultural resonance, the novel pairs the dark humor of classic comedic routines with thoughtful exploration of memory, mortality, loyalty, and loss.

"Weinberger's fourth whodunit featuring elderly Jewish P.I. Amos Parisman (after 2022's The Kindness of Strangers) is his best yet....The plot never lags, and Weinberger enriches the proceedings by wringing pathos out of Parisman's love and concern for Loretta. Fans of Roger Simon's Moses Wine series will enjoy themselves." —Publishers Weekly