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Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Two cases with powerful personal aspects challenge Isaiah "IQ" Quintabe, known in his Long Beach, Calif., community for his crime-solving abilities, in Edgar-finalist Ide's outstanding sequel to 2016's IQ. The most painful open wound in Isaiah's life remains the hit-and-run death eight years earlier of his older brother, Marcus, which Isaiah witnessed. His perseverance in seeking justice seems to have paid off when he locates the car that killed Marcus, but new evidence that Marcus was deliberately targeted raises a slew of troubling questions. The revelation comes just as Marcus's girlfriend, Sarita Van, reenters Isaiah's life to request help; her half-sister, Janine, a Vegas deejay, has racked up gambling debts that can't be paid off. Since Isaiah still carries a torch for Sarita, he agrees to help. Ide again makes his hero's deductive brilliance plausible, while presenting an emotionally engaging story that doesn't shy away from presenting the bleakest aspects of humanity. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Guardian Review
Sunburn (Faber, £14.99), Laura Lippmans homage to the hardboiled, morally ambiguous novels of James M Cain, has the texture and many of the tropes of classic American noir but is set in 1995. Tired of her loveless marriage and limited horizons, beautiful redhead Polly Costello walks out on husband Gregg and young daughter Jani during a beach holiday and fetches up in the one-horse town of Belleville, Delaware, where she takes a job in the High-Ho bar-slash-restaurant. Here, she meets Adam Bosk, and a flirtation commences. It soon becomes clear that Adam knows more about Polly than he is letting on, and that her past is infinitely more complicated than either Adam or Gregg realise, and the skeletons in the cupboard begin to pile perilously high. Lippman uses multiple narrators and controls the flow of information masterfully in this tantalising, ingeniously constructed page-turner. Righteous by Joe Ide (W&N, £14.99) picks up where the authors award-winning first novel, IQ, left off: Isaiah Quintabe is still living in East Long Beach, California, solving the minor problems of his neighbourhood and obsessing over the mysterious death of his older brother, Marcus. Just as he begins to make progress, Sarita Van, who was Marcuss fiancee and for whom Isaiah has long held a torch, asks him to find her sister. Janine is a Las Vegas DJ who, together with her loser boyfriend, has run up gambling debts, and the pair are being pursued by a loan shark. Isaiah persuades his friend Dodson a former offender who is the Watson to his Sherlock Holmes to help, and the duo find themselves up against a cast of criminals, including sex traffickers, Chinese mobsters and money launderers, some of whom have disturbing information about Marcuss death. Witty and confident, with a bustling plot and a protagonist who is both original and appealing, this is a worthy follow-up to Ides excellent debut. The Blinds by Adam Sternbergh (Faber, £7.99) is a well-written blend of the science fiction, western and crime genres. Caesura, AKA The Blinds, is a small, isolated Texas town whose population mixes criminals with witnesses to crime who have opted into an experimental programme. With their memories wiped, they have been allowed to choose new identities (one name to be taken from a list of vice-presidents, the other from a list of film stars). Its a second chance, of sorts but anyone who tries to leave ends up dead. Nobody has a gun except Sheriff Calvin Cooper, so its a puzzle when two people are shot. The first death seems to be self-inflicted and the second the result of a bar fight. Cooper is reluctantly drawn into an investigation by an eager new deputy. Intrusions from the outside world up the ante, and the uneasy peace is violently shattered. Although Sternberghs tendency to flag up his intentions undermines some of the suspense, an intriguing premise, strong narrative hooks and a brisk pace make this a riveting read. Cathi Unsworths latest novel, That Old Black Magic (Serpents Tail, £12.99), blends fact and fiction for a well researched, evocative tale about one of the weirder outposts of second world war British intelligence. When a captured German spy is found to have a satanic amulet in his possession together with a photograph of his female contact, undercover policeman Ross Spooner is tasked with finding the woman, who according to his boss might be a witch. A second storyline involves the real-life medium Helen Duncan who, in 1944, was the last person to be imprisoned under the Witchcraft Act of 1735 (more because she appeared to be disseminating classified information about the torpedoing of a ship than because the authorities feared her going full-on Harry Potter). A labyrinthine plot with a nod to Dennis Wheatley interweaves imagined characters with historical figures such as credulous journalist Hannen Swaffer and ghost hunter Harry Price. The shade of Muriel Spark, whose centenary year it is, hovers over Olga Wojtass debut novel Miss Blaines Prefect and the Golden Samovar (Contraband, £8.99). Erudite, unflappable Morningside librarian Shona McMonagle spends her days trying to keep The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie out of the hands of borrowers because of the damage she feels it has done to the reputation of her alma mater, the Marcia Blaine School for Girls. When she receives a surprise visit from 200-year-old Miss Blaine herself, she doesnt bat an eyelid, but agrees to go to 19th-century Russia on an unspecified mission as part of a time-travelling scheme that enables former pupils to extend their altruistic efforts across the centuries. Being an accomplished linguist, musician and martial artist, Shona has plenty of resources to draw on. But finding herself thrust into a bewildering milieu of haughty aristocrats and grovelling serfs, and not even sure of which year it is, she repeatedly fails to grasp what she is supposed to be doing. This is a delightful addition to the ranks of comic crime, mixing sharp observation with a lightness of touch. - Laura Wilson.
Kirkus Review
The game's afoot once again for 20-something genius sleuth Isaiah Quintabe, who has two cases to deal with: one leading him to mayhem in Las Vegas, the other to the man responsible for his brother's death.Things are pretty much as we left them with Isaiah in Ide's acclaimed debut mystery/thriller, IQ (2016). He's still leading a mostly solitary life in his East Long Beach, California, neighborhood, using his agile intellect to help old ladies find lost jewelry, chase away abusive ex-husbands, or deal with volatile gang members who think he's too smart for his own good. The one case he'd most like to crack involves the hit-and-run death of his beloved older brother, Marcus. Just as he's finally figured out that Marcus' death was no accident, IQ gets a call from drop-dead-gorgeous Sarita Van, his late brother's one-time fiancee, who's now a high-powered attorney. She wants him to find her younger sister, Janine, a Vegas-based club DJ who shares a gambling addiction with her ne'er-do-well boyfriend, Benny. They're on the run from Leo, a vicious loan shark, whose collector in chief is a 7-foot-tall, broad-shouldered, dead-eyed Canadian named Balthazar. Isaiah's only backup on this mission is his short-fused but dauntless neighborhood buddy, Dodson, whose own plate is full trying to make his food truck profitable and waiting for his wife to give birth to their first child. Once on the Vegas strip, this post-Millennial Holmes and Watson get far more than they bargained for as they have to fight and think their way through waves of Chinese mob muscle led by a baleful sex trafficker leaning heavily on Sarita and Janine's craven, corrupt father. Ide weaves the often antic events of this case in tandem with Isaiah's lonesome inquiry into his brother's death; a pursuit that leads him to the sinister Seb Habimana, an East African refugee who's made his mark in Isaiah's hood in shady real estate dealings and shadier money laundering operations. The plots of these separate cases collide as much as they interweave, and Ide can sometimes go a little too long and deep on background info. But he keeps your head in the game throughout with his witty style and edgy storytelling, both of which show greater assurance than in his first noveland even bigger potential for the future. A thrilling follow-up to one of the more auspicious detective-series debuts in recent memory. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Ide's debut, IQ (2016), was one of last year's best crime novels, and he follows it with another scorcher. Isaiah Quintabe has established himself as the PI of choice in East Long Beach, especially for cases well out of the mainstream. And this one is at least a galaxy or two away from anything like a mainstream. Even Isaiah's relatively unhinged sidekick, Dodson (Watson to Isaiah's Sherlock), knows that nothing good can come from trying to find a Chinese girl and her gambling-addicted boyfriend who are both on the radar of a vicious Chinese gang. Yes, but the girl in question is the sister of Sarita, once involved with Isaiah's murdered older brother and still the love of Isaiah's life. Maybe if he finds the sister, he will have a chance to show Sarita that he's no longer a little boy. So begins a deadly bumper-car ride that will find Isaiah not only attempting to save the sister and her sad-sack boyfriend but also on the trail of the mastermind behind his brother's murder. Like the great Thomas Perry, Ide manages to combine light and dark in wholly unpredictable ways, blending comic capering with real-life bloodletting in a manner that diminishes neither and taps a vein of deep emotion lurking amid the laugh lines and spurts of violence. Anyone who loves Perry or Timothy Hallinan needs to hop on Ide's bandwagon while there's still room to sit.--Ott, Bill Copyright 2017 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Isaiah Quintabe,"IQ," the Sherlock Holmes of East Long Beach, CA, uses his inductive reasoning skills to investigate crime and has taken payment in the form of live chickens and baked goods. His Achilles heel is an obsessive need to know who drove the car that killed his brother Marcus a decade ago. When -Marcus's old girlfriend Sarita asks IQ to help extricate her sister from a crushing gambling debt in Vegas, he can't refuse. He has always been in love with Sarita and envisions this case ushering in their new life together. IQ once again enlists the help of Dodson (Watson to his Sherlock) who has a pregnant girlfriend and a day job in an attempt to go legitimate. Dodson's witty banter and dynamic personal life provide a piercing contrast to IQ's solitary and sterile existence, and the scenes between the two are notable in this brilliantly executed novel. Deftly weaving the search for Marcus's killer with various escapades in Vegas, Ide employs a clever mixing of time lines that will keep readers guessing until the explosive, bloody denouement. VERDICT A winning combination of skillful writing and flawless pacing, this second series outing is packed with adrenaline-inducing scenes along with a colorful cast of violent and treacherous villains. [See Prepub Alert, 4/10/17; -"Editors' Fall Picks," p. 32.]-Amy Nolan, St. Joseph, MI © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.