Isaiah Quintabe returns in Righteous, the highly-anticipated follow-up to Joe Ide’s 2016 Edgar Award-nominated debut novel, IQ.
Ten years ago, when Isaiah “IQ” Quintabe was a teenager, his older brother, Marcus, was killed. Sadly, the killer was never caught and brought to justice, a fact that haunts IQ to this day — still causing the prominent East Long Beach-based private investigator plenty of sleepless nights.
Juggling cases, Isaiah finally tracks down the car involved in the hit-and-run that killed Marcus — an event that he witnessed. However, things take a turn when new evidence suggests that Marcus’ death wasn’t an accident at all, but rather a targeted strike aimed to take out the older Quintabe boy. That possibility sends shockwaves through Isaiah, who is determined to get to the bottom of this once and for all.
Unfortunately for IQ, his former lover, Sarita Van, pops back up and re-enters his life at the worst possible moment.
When her hipster Vegas DJ sister, Jannie, goes missing while on the run from a dangerous loan shark, Sarita contacts Isaiah for his help. To manage the workload, Isaiah brings in his old friend Dodson — who steps away from his food truck long enough to do some investigative work. With a baby on the way and his own business venture struggling, Dodson is more than willing to help even before he knows for certain what he’s signing up for — something he may just come to regret down the road.
The search for Sarita’s sister quickly proves to be more challenging than either Isaiah or Dobson had originally thought, as the duo races around Las Vegas trying to avoid Chinese mobsters and a loan shark’s henchman who has the height of an NBA center and the build of an NFL linebacker.
As the story unfolds, Ide keeps readers’ attention with superb dialogue and character development, wrapped around the two complex cases his protagonist attempts to solve. The personal elements of both investigations add a dramatic feel to the plot, which builds on the success of last year’s IQ.
With other darlings of the genre (Harry Bosh, Alex Cross, etc.) getting up there in age, Isaiah Quintabe is definitely a character to keep an eye on. Ide displays even more of the natural storytelling ability and talent that he flashed in his well-received debut, while also continuing to flesh out his characters and make them more relatable to readers.
Joe Ide is the real deal…If you’re a fan of crime fiction and haven’t discovered this series yet, add it to your must-read list right away.
Book Details
Author: Joe Ide
Series: An IQ novel #2
Pages: 336 (Hardcover)
ISBN: 0316267775
Publisher: Mulholland Books
Release Date: October 17, 2017
Book Spy Rating: 7.0/10
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