A review by kategci
IQ by Joe Ide

4.0

This was a finalist for the Tonight Show book club for Summer of 2018. I had never heard of it, but I got it from the library and pretty much couldn't put it down. Isaiah Quintabe, the IQ of the title is a private detective in East Long Beach in California. Neither he, nor the other characters in this book are my usual choices to read about, but Joe Ide writes so well, I kept turning the pages and became invested in all of them. A highly successful rap artist has become so paranoid he cannot leave the house. Well, despite taking huge amounts of legal and illegal drugs, Cal the rap artist has every reason to be paranoid as someone or a group of someones are actually trying to kill him. He is surrounded by an entourage and IQ is trying ti figure out who on the inside is talking to the outside. A lot of background information is presented in this book, but Ide does it so well that I did not mind the back and forth to let us know how IQ got to where he is today. The second in the series has already been published and the 3rd will be published in the Fall. Soon, I will be ready to spend time with IQ and his buddy Dodson as they go forward.