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IQ

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IQ

By: Joe Ide
Narrated by: Sullivan Jones
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About this listen

 A resident of one of LA's toughest neighborhoods uses his blistering intellect to solve the crimes the LAPD ignores.

East Long Beach. The LAPD is barely keeping up with the neighborhood's high crime rate. Murders go unsolved, lost children unrecovered. But someone from the neighborhood has taken it upon himself to help solve the cases the police can't or won't touch.

They call him IQ. He's a loner and a high school dropout, his unassuming nature disguising a relentless determination and a fierce intelligence. He charges his clients whatever they can afford, which might be a set of tires or a homemade casserole. To get by, he's forced to take on clients that can pay.

This time, it's a rap mogul whose life is in danger. As Isaiah investigates, he encounters a vengeful ex-wife, a crew of notorious cutthroats, a monstrous attack dog, and a hit man who even other hit men say is a lunatic. The deeper Isaiah digs, the more far reaching and dangerous the case becomes. African American Crime Thrillers Historical Fiction Mystery Private Investigators Thriller & Suspense World Literature

Critic Reviews

Winner of the Anthony, Macavity, and Shamus Awards
Nominated for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel
One of the Best Books of the Year - The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Amazon, Suspense Magazine
"The start of a brand-new comedic crime franchise with a bright future. . . . Aggressively entertaining plotting is paired with the kind of dialogue for which readers love Don Winslow. This series is a Los Angeles classic right from the start."—Janet Maslin, The New York Times
"One of the most original thrillers of the year . . . [A] sometimes scary, often whimsical, off-the-wall delight . . . It's a mad world that late-blooming Joe Ide has brought forth from his past, a spicy mix of urban horror, youthful striving and show-business absurdity. His IQ is an original and welcome creation."—Patrick Anderson, Washington Post
"Wonderfully quirky . . . Exhilarating language and [an] oddball cast . . . A total laff-riot"—Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review
"A crackling page-turner of a debut"—Entertainment Weekly
"Joe Ide introduces one of the coolest investigators working the mean streets of Los Angeles. . . . Ide emulates Walter Mosley, that great chronicler of South Central Los Angeles via the Easy Rawlins novels. That's some serious company with whom to be traveling."—Lloyd Sachs, Chicago Tribune
"This debut novel is going to splash the name Joe Ide across the crowded map of crime fiction and commercial fiction in general. Because it's that good, it's that unusual... Do your stretch of holiday reading time a favor by reading this hilarious and harrowing, starkly modern, strikingly American, inner-city sort of oblique homage to the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson... It's one hell of a thrilling read."—Austin Chronicle
"I don't know how fast Joe Ide writes, but from now on he'll have to write faster. Everyone who reads IQ will be clamoring for the next book, and for the one after that. This is one of the most intriguing--and appealing--detective characters to come along in years."—Carl Hiaasen
"A few things I love about this... [IQ is] rooted in his community in a way that his inspiration never was...IQ is a small story in the way the best of Conan Doyle's were.... It's a detective story that plays out very close to home, on the streets and corners that Ide (who grew up in South Central) knows best. And Isaiah fits into those streets like they were made for him. A consulting detective for a time and a place that needs one."—Jason Sheehan, NPR
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