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
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