Hi Five by Joe Ide

Unlicensed PI and South-Central LA’s respected get it done expert, Isaiah Quintabe (aka IQ), is having a tough time getting it done . . . at least in his personal life. His long-time girlfriend, artist Grace, left him and LA to get away from the streets and drama that surrounded Isaiah. Two years ago, she took off for the artist mecca of Santa Fe. Since then, Isaiah had been with Stella, an up and coming violinist with the Long Beach Symphony recently promoted to first chair and preparing to be the featured soloist in the next concert. Great woman, but she’s not Grace. And there is still the streets and drama of his life.

His rep around Compton, Carson, etc. is stellar. Solves your problems and he won’t let go until said problem is fixed. But Angus calls him, and Isaiah isn’t pleased. Angus is the biggest arms supplier to LA gangs. Christiana, his daughter, is soon to be (wrongfully) charged with murder and Angus wants Isaiah to stop that from happening. Stop it or Angus will have Stella’s hands destroyed by his crew.

Isaiah goes to meet Christiana. She runs a custom suit shop and lives with her mother. Turns out Christiana is one of those rare multiple personality disorders. Five of ‘em live in her head and continually battle each other for dominance. Angus’ right-hand man was in for a suit, but was ambushed in the shop and murdered in front of her. Isaiah has to interview each of the ‘alters’ to get all the details.

And old Angus is still doing business. Wants one last sale to send him off into retirement. And it’s a big one. He’s managed to acquire a Gatling gun. One of those 4000 rounds per minute monsters. A Mexican cartel wants it and is willing to pay the $1 million price tag. Not to mention that some other local gangs want to intercept the sale and get the gun for themselves.

Seeing the errors of Angus’ ways, Isaiah wants to stop the sale of the gun while not pissing off Angus who’d then ruin Stella’s life and hands whether Isaiah got Christiana off or not.

Can you say rock and a hard place? Add to the mix Cambodian gangs, neo-nazi skinheads, a couple dozen Latino gang members. And an old junkyard (make that 'wrecking yard') owner looking for love in his church (which is actually a very compelling subplot).

This is Joe Ide’s fourth IQ book and I think at least two earlier books have been reviewed here on MRB. Ide has been a screenwriter and has the chops for telling a story, presenting the street life around Long Beach, keeping a number of balls in the air so that all the secondary stories come off smoothly. Highly recommended for those of us who like mysteries and suspense novels. Noir? Maybe. It’s got the gumshoe, femme fatales, multiple bad guys circling each other in scattered stories and the resulting violence that pulls all the stories together.

ECD

 

Wrecked by Joe Ide

Abu Ghraib was one horrible curse on the military. Guard abusing prisoners. But what the public saw was just the tip of a sick iceberg. Enlisted soldiers took the blame and the jail time while officers got, at the worst, a reprimand. An uninvolved guard, Charles, takes some clandestine pics and puts them in his personal cloud account. Call it insurance. But a home invasion gone wrong prevents Charles from cashing in. 

Captain Walczak was the head of one of the most torturous units. Back home, he now heads a mega security company. When threatened with extortion, he goes after Charles’ wife Sarah. She must know the password to that cloud account. Ten years ago, Sarah went underground and off the grid to protect herself and her daughter.

Meet Grace. She is a mid 20s artist who, during routine visits to a coffee shop, has caught the eye of Isiah Quintabe - IQ for short. IQ helps people too far down the food chain for more formal private detectives. He’s pretty well known around the Long Beach area and has garnered considerable respect. IQ tries to start up conversations, but is he is tres awkward around women.

Out of the blue, Grace hires IQ to find her mother, missing now for 10 years. He reluctantly agrees to take on the case but takes it more seriously and personally when he and Grace narrowly escape when her apartment is trashed. 

Walczak is after her. Trying to use Grace to get to Sarah. Being a government contractor, he has access to databases, manpower, and weapons. IQ has a bunch of homemade tools. Not a real fair fight. But IQ is street smart. Much smarter than Walczak or his gang of ex-Abu Ghraid guards. The chase degenerates further to some pretty severe torture, dog maulings, knives, axes, a riot at the Burning Man festival, and more torture. 

This book isn’t for the squeamish, but that horror is tempered a bit with some humorous escapades including a low rent crook who destroys the English language while trying to sound smart (after Junior stops someone trying to steal a stash of his cash, he proudly announces, “This is the aftermath of deliberating with my mentality.” Or when someone ignores Junior’s caller id, “Are you disqualified from deencryptin’ your caller ID?”).

Joe Ide made an auspicious debut with “IQ” a few years ago (favorably reviewed by MRB). I missed #2 (Righteous). This is #3. While it really is quite violent and rife with detailed descriptions of what one person with power can do to the powerless, you really do like IQ and the people who gather in his universe. Not to mention the unrealized possibility of a relationship between IQ and Grace. While only 3 books into his writing career, Ide already has a shelf full of awards for his unique and literate view of LA noir. More awards will be coming, I’m sure. Ide and IQ are both winners.

ECD

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IQ by Joe Ide

In 2006, Isaiah Quintabe was in high school living with his older brother Marcus. Isaiah had a bright future despite living in the gang infested streets just east of Long Beach. He was smart. Book smart. Really smart. College credit this and Advanced Placement that. But in all changed in an instant. Gave up the chance at Stanford and dropped out of high school.

He needed money to help pay the rent so he took in a wannabe thug from school. Dodson was small. Talked trash non-stop. Talked big. Made plans. The world was gonna know Dodson one way or another. Money was tight so they decide to become a team that robbed some strange targets. Like the hair salon that stocked $500 hair extensions, or the shoe store with a rack of high-end heels for ladies.

A neighbor lady has an issue with someone trying to take advantage of her. Isaiah talks reasonably with the guy hinting that some bad things might happen if he continued on this path. Problem solved. Word gets around. That smart kid gets things done.

He becomes: IQ. An unlicensed and off-the-books problem solver. No marketing. Just word of mouth. Some days he gets paid, some days he gets gumbo.

It’s 2013. Dodson is still around only he’s less trash talk but is still all mouth. Serving as IQs sounding board/verbal billboard finding jobs and negotiating fees. A magazine article did a profile on IQ bringing plenty of business. Big money is calling.

Black the Knife is a rapper. One of the biggest. Numerous multi-platinum albums, a trophy wife — make that ex-wife, cutthroat bodyguards, a personal secretary, driver, mansion, millions of fans, clinically depressed and totally burnt out. And someone is trying to kill him. He is convinced it’s his ex. After reading the profile on IQ, he demands IQ he hired to find the proof.

Security footage shows an intruder at the back of the house with a pit bull the size of a Great Dane. It’s obvious the dog is a trained killer, but no target this night. IQ realizes that in order to find out who is behind the threats, he has to find the dog, then its psychotic owner to finally find out who hired out the hit.

You can't help but root for IQ. He is a genuine and refreshing new character in the PI genre, with a huge heart, a gift for deductive reasoning, and an ethical streak that continually perplexes Dodson. Ide gives us a ghetto version of Sherlock Holmes in IQ and, come 2013, allows Dodson to evolve from a teenage thug to more of a Leo Getz (Joe Pesci in Lethal Weapon 2. If this ever became a movie, Kevin Hart is typecast to play Dodson). In the midst of numerous steps in the investigation, I found myself laughing out loud (unusual for me) picturing a manic black Leo Getz. No sooner have the yuks died down when Ide puts IQ face to face with the massive killer pit bull causing me to hold my breath, or worse.

The dialogue is what sets this apart from most other LA PI novels. Yes, it’s coarse. Very coarse. But at times it felt a bit rushed to me. Like Ide was maybe trying too hard. The best street dialogue I’ve ever read is anything by George Pelecanos. I would guess that Ide’s gift for dialogue will mature and become more natural, like Pelecanos. In the meantime, we have to be satisfied by delighting in a story that sounds like it sprung from the love child of Tarantino and Scorsese and then nurtured on Conan Doyle.

Put this on your must-read list. IQ and Dodson are a truly original pair. Pretty sure you’ll like it.

Available October 2016.

East Coast Don