Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Ide's debut, IQ (2016), was one of last year's best crime novels, and he follows it with another scorcher. Isaiah Quintabe has established himself as the PI of choice in East Long Beach, especially for cases well out of the mainstream. And this one is at least a galaxy or two away from anything like a mainstream. Even Isaiah's relatively unhinged sidekick, Dodson (Watson to Isaiah's Sherlock), knows that nothing good can come from trying to find a Chinese girl and her gambling-addicted boyfriend who are both on the radar of a vicious Chinese gang. Yes, but the girl in question is the sister of Sarita, once involved with Isaiah's murdered older brother and still the love of Isaiah's life. Maybe if he finds the sister, he will have a chance to show Sarita that he's no longer a little boy. So begins a deadly bumper-car ride that will find Isaiah not only attempting to save the sister and her sad-sack boyfriend but also on the trail of the mastermind behind his brother's murder. Like the great Thomas Perry, Ide manages to combine light and dark in wholly unpredictable ways, blending comic capering with real-life bloodletting in a manner that diminishes neither and taps a vein of deep emotion lurking amid the laugh lines and spurts of violence. Anyone who loves Perry or Timothy Hallinan needs to hop on Ide's bandwagon while there's still room to sit.--Ott, Bill Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Two cases with powerful personal aspects challenge Isaiah "IQ" Quintabe, known in his Long Beach, Calif., community for his crime-solving abilities, in Edgar-finalist Ide's outstanding sequel to 2016's IQ. The most painful open wound in Isaiah's life remains the hit-and-run death eight years earlier of his older brother, Marcus, which Isaiah witnessed. His perseverance in seeking justice seems to have paid off when he locates the car that killed Marcus, but new evidence that Marcus was deliberately targeted raises a slew of troubling questions. The revelation comes just as Marcus's girlfriend, Sarita Van, reenters Isaiah's life to request help; her half-sister, Janine, a Vegas deejay, has racked up gambling debts that can't be paid off. Since Isaiah still carries a torch for Sarita, he agrees to help. Ide again makes his hero's deductive brilliance plausible, while presenting an emotionally engaging story that doesn't shy away from presenting the bleakest aspects of humanity. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Isaiah Quintabe,"IQ," the Sherlock Holmes of East Long Beach, CA, uses his inductive reasoning skills to investigate crime and has taken payment in the form of live chickens and baked goods. His Achilles heel is an obsessive need to know who drove the car that killed his brother Marcus a decade ago. When -Marcus's old girlfriend Sarita asks IQ to help extricate her sister from a crushing gambling debt in Vegas, he can't refuse. He has always been in love with Sarita and envisions this case ushering in their new life together. IQ once again enlists the help of Dodson (Watson to his Sherlock) who has a pregnant girlfriend and a day job in an attempt to go legitimate. Dodson's witty banter and dynamic personal life provide a piercing contrast to IQ's solitary and sterile existence, and the scenes between the two are notable in this brilliantly executed novel. Deftly weaving the search for Marcus's killer with various escapades in Vegas, Ide employs a clever mixing of time lines that will keep readers guessing until the explosive, bloody denouement. VERDICT A winning combination of skillful writing and flawless pacing, this second series outing is packed with adrenaline-inducing scenes along with a colorful cast of violent and treacherous villains. [See Prepub Alert, 4/10/17; -"Editors' Fall Picks," p. 32.]-Amy Nolan, St. Joseph, MI © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The game's afoot once again for 20-something genius sleuth Isaiah Quintabe, who has two cases to deal with: one leading him to mayhem in Las Vegas, the other to the man responsible for his brother's death.Things are pretty much as we left them with Isaiah in Ide's acclaimed debut mystery/thriller, IQ (2016). He's still leading a mostly solitary life in his East Long Beach, California, neighborhood, using his agile intellect to help old ladies find lost jewelry, chase away abusive ex-husbands, or deal with volatile gang members who think he's too smart for his own good. The one case he'd most like to crack involves the hit-and-run death of his beloved older brother, Marcus. Just as he's finally figured out that Marcus' death was no accident, IQ gets a call from drop-dead-gorgeous Sarita Van, his late brother's one-time fiancee, who's now a high-powered attorney. She wants him to find her younger sister, Janine, a Vegas-based club DJ who shares a gambling addiction with her ne'er-do-well boyfriend, Benny. They're on the run from Leo, a vicious loan shark, whose collector in chief is a 7-foot-tall, broad-shouldered, dead-eyed Canadian named Balthazar. Isaiah's only backup on this mission is his short-fused but dauntless neighborhood buddy, Dodson, whose own plate is full trying to make his food truck profitable and waiting for his wife to give birth to their first child. Once on the Vegas strip, this post-Millennial Holmes and Watson get far more than they bargained for as they have to fight and think their way through waves of Chinese mob muscle led by a baleful sex trafficker leaning heavily on Sarita and Janine's craven, corrupt father. Ide weaves the often antic events of this case in tandem with Isaiah's lonesome inquiry into his brother's death; a pursuit that leads him to the sinister Seb Habimana, an East African refugee who's made his mark in Isaiah's hood in shady real estate dealings and shadier money laundering operations. The plots of these separate cases collide as much as they interweave, and Ide can sometimes go a little too long and deep on background info. But he keeps your head in the game throughout with his witty style and edgy storytelling, both of which show greater assurance than in his first noveland even bigger potential for the future. A thrilling follow-up to one of the more auspicious detective-series debuts in recent memory. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
