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IQ An IQ Novel Joe Ide Books

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IQ An IQ Novel Joe Ide Books

I pre-ordered this book a while ago and found it downloaded in my Kindle app on Friday night; I finished it Saturday night and loved every minute of it.

It was really enjoyable to see a character who, while born with natural intelligence, had to chose whether to use it ethically (and ultimately chose correctly) and had to train himself in the Sherlock Holmes-like skills he has when we first meet him. That’s so much more interesting than someone whose abilities are just assumed and whose choices and motives we never see. Isaiah’s a self-contained, confident character—or at least the present-day Isaiah is. When he knows he's doing the right thing Isaiah is fearless, no matter who he's facing, but he wasn't always like that. Mr. Ide does a great job of filling in Isaiah's background in flashbacks while not detracting from his current case, so that we see how Isaiah made himself into the admirable character he's become. Anti-heroes don’t appeal to me, but it was clear that Isaiah had made himself into a good man, so reading about the detours in his young life was a lot less nerve-wracking than it might otherwise have been.

I've read some books in the detective genre in which the bad guys are such vile, depraved monsters that I've thought, "I'd be embarrassed to even conceive of someone like that, much less confess it publicly by writing it down," but IQ isn't one of those stories. The bad guys are creeps, it's true, but they're not sickos that make you feel dirty just reading about them. Mr. Ide has created a perfectly plausible and realistic world, and yet there's a hopeful, benevolent sense of life underlying it all, and that, along with the character of Isaiah himself, made it a real pleasure to read.

The way Mr. Ide wrapped up the story, with justice (unconventional justice in some ways) all around, was very satisfying, and I sincerely hope that he's at this very moment working on the first of many sequels.


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IQ An IQ Novel Joe Ide Books Reviews

Most readers of detective fiction are well educated and live in comfortable circumstances. So it’s not surprising that most novels about people solving crimes involve well-educated investigators who live in at least middle-class homes. There are many exceptions, of course. George Pelecanos and James Lee Burke come immediately to mind. But it’s genuinely unusual to come across a detective novel that features a poorly educated investigator who solves crimes involving poor people in African-American and Latino neighborhoods. IQ by Joe Ide is such a book, and it’s very well done at that.

IQ is Isaiah Quintabe. He lives in East Long Beach, California, in a crime-ridden neighborhood where Latino and African-American gangs are often at war. Though he dropped out of high school, he is anything but ignorant. With “near-genius” intelligence, a voracious taste for reading, and an extraordinary ability to apply inductive reasoning to any problem facing him, IQ is a latter-day Sherlock Holmes. He’s “the low-key brother who was so smart people said he was scary.” An unlicensed inner-city crimesolver, he devotes himself almost exclusively to investigating crimes, usually for no payment more than a chicken or a plate of food. He supports himself through a series of menial and generally low-skill jobs. Because of an article in a local online hip-hop newsletter, his reputation has spread throughout the region. He receives numerous requests for help on a daily basis, but he takes only those he finds worthy and “where the police could not or would not get involved.”

The action in IQ takes place in 2005, explaining Isaiah’s backstory, and in 2013, when circumstances force him to take on a case for a wealthy rap star whose life has been threatened. Scenes from each of the two periods alternate throughout the book. Gradually, we learn how Isaiah, still in high school, lost the older brother who had raised him — and then devoted his life to finding the man who’d killed him. Much later, because he’s broke, IQ is drawn into investigating the curious circumstances surrounding the threat to the rap star’s life.

Both the circumstances portrayed in the story, and the methodical way in which Isaiah pursues his investigations, are fascinating. I can only hope that IQ will reappear in future novels as well.

The author, Joe Ide, is neither African-American nor Latino. He is, in fact, Japanese-American. As he explained in an interview with Publishers Weekly, “I was a burned-out screenwriter. I had to make a living and writing a book seemed like the logical thing to do. As a kid, my favorite books were the original Sherlock Holmes stories. I was fascinated with the character. Like me, he was an introvert who didn’t fit in, but unlike me, he defeated his enemies and controlled his world, and he did it with only the power of his intelligence. I was a small kid in a big neighborhood, and that idea affected me deeply. When contemplating the book, a Sherlockian character was the only thing that occurred to me. I grew up in South Central L.A., so the inner city was comfortable terrain and Sherlock in the hood was born.”
I originally ordered this book because of the early reviews, I kept reading how great it was. Then the book came out, it was on my , and the reviews from readers, rather than early critics, were so mixed. Still, I decided to give it a try and I am so glad I was patient and stuck with it. It is a great read.
When I first started it, I found it a little hard to follow. The author goes back and forth in time, with the present and the backstory. For some reason, it didn't seem like a smooth transition between timelines, and I had a hard time following it. Fortunately after a few chapters, it seemed to go more smoothly, or I just got used to the abrupt changes. I would settle down and get into the story, then boom, I was into the other timeline. Instead of being annoying though, I found myself reading and reading, I had to keep going so I could know what was going to happen next, in each timeline.
I really liked the main character, I even got to like his sidekick. The sidekick is frustrating, still not sure how trustworthy he is, but the main character is so different from any character I grew to love from all the books I read.
I read a lot of books, three to four a week, and it is something for me to feel as if I am reading something very different from all the other books I read. This book is different, and this book is well worth the read. Give it a try, be patient at first, I think you will enjoy it.
I don't review all the books I read, I try to review debut authors if I like the book, or review something that touches me in a special way. This is the debut by this author, I hope he is busy writing his next one!
I pre-ordered this book a while ago and found it downloaded in my app on Friday night; I finished it Saturday night and loved every minute of it.

It was really enjoyable to see a character who, while born with natural intelligence, had to chose whether to use it ethically (and ultimately chose correctly) and had to train himself in the Sherlock Holmes-like skills he has when we first meet him. That’s so much more interesting than someone whose abilities are just assumed and whose choices and motives we never see. Isaiah’s a self-contained, confident character—or at least the present-day Isaiah is. When he knows he's doing the right thing Isaiah is fearless, no matter who he's facing, but he wasn't always like that. Mr. Ide does a great job of filling in Isaiah's background in flashbacks while not detracting from his current case, so that we see how Isaiah made himself into the admirable character he's become. Anti-heroes don’t appeal to me, but it was clear that Isaiah had made himself into a good man, so reading about the detours in his young life was a lot less nerve-wracking than it might otherwise have been.

I've read some books in the detective genre in which the bad guys are such vile, depraved monsters that I've thought, "I'd be embarrassed to even conceive of someone like that, much less confess it publicly by writing it down," but IQ isn't one of those stories. The bad guys are creeps, it's true, but they're not sickos that make you feel dirty just reading about them. Mr. Ide has created a perfectly plausible and realistic world, and yet there's a hopeful, benevolent sense of life underlying it all, and that, along with the character of Isaiah himself, made it a real pleasure to read.

The way Mr. Ide wrapped up the story, with justice (unconventional justice in some ways) all around, was very satisfying, and I sincerely hope that he's at this very moment working on the first of many sequels.