The Nature of Things

This is the third in Joe Ide's IQ (Isaiah Quintabe) mysteries. I accidentally read it out of order but it didn't inhibit my enjoyment of the book. In fact, this is my favorite of the IQ books I've read so far. IQ's fame in East Long Beach has grown considerably. He has solved some high profile cases and now he is recognized wherever he goes. But he still takes the small neighborhood mysteries as well and solves them in return for bartered products or services. This does not sit well with his new partner, Dodson, his friend and former sidekick in some less salubrious past activities. Dodson has turned a page in his life. He has a wife and a new baby and he needs to be able to support them and to have the respect of the community. His demand as a partner is to be in charge of finances and to make sure that all cases in the future are accepted on a cash basis. IQ agrees but his heart really isn't in it. People in the neighborhood still expect to be able to barter with ...

I decided to give Joe Ide another chance after being somewhat disappointed by Righteous which I read a couple of months ago. I'm glad I did. This one was a definite improvement. It had an interesting plot and well-developed characters and Ide's protagonist, Isaiah Quintabe (IQ), comes into clearer focus in this one. Angus Byrne is one of the biggest, maybe the biggest, dealers in illicit arms sales on the West Coast, and his right-hand man has just been murdered, mowed down while in Angus's daughter Christiana's boutique shop where he was having a suit fitted. There seem to be few clues and the police are focusing on Christiana as their number one suspect. This is an unacceptable situation for Angus for several reasons; first and foremost because she is his daughter. He is desperate to have her cleared and free of the police's gaze because she really could not withstand such investigation. Christiana was abused as a child and the result is that now she suffers from...

I read Joe Ide's first book in his series, IQ , a couple of years ago and liked it well enough that I thought I would read further, but, as often happens, I was distracted by other books and actually sort of forgot about it. Then I happened upon this one recently. This is the second in the series and I decided to give it a read. The events in this book take place ten years after the hit-and-run death of Isaiah Quintabe's older brother, Marcus, the experience that has set Isaiah on his life's path. His righteous anger over the incident has not abated; in fact, it has only gotten stronger over the years, fueled by the fact that the killer was never found and brought to justice. He is still searching for that killer. But then Isaiah is contacted by Sarita, who was Marcus' girlfriend at the time of his death and someone for whom Isaiah has nourished a secret crush. She seeks his help for her sister, Janine, a DJ and gambler addict living in Las Vegas with her loser boyfrien...

I recently read a review of Joe Ide's (pronounced ee-day ) just published new entry in this series and was intrigued by it. I wanted to read it, but the reviewer cautioned me that I really needed to start with the first book and read them in the order published. Rats! Well, the good news is that I don't have to go back to 1984 and read thirty books in order to get to the one I actually wanted to read. No, the first book, IQ , was published just two years ago and the latest one is the third in the series. It seemed doable. And that's how I came to be introduced to Isaiah Quintabe - IQ. Isaiah is an African-American man from one of Los Angeles' toughest neighborhoods. He lost both of his parents when he was quite young and he was raised by an older brother, Marcus, whom he idolized.  Marcus was a jack-of-all-trades and a young man of great integrity and a high moral standard and he set about teaching all of that to his younger brother. Isaiah was a prodigy, possessed of ...