IQ, Joe Ide’s fan-favorite Private Investigator, is scheduled to return next February in Smoke, one of the most anticipated crime thrillers of 2021.
Isaiah Quintabe, who goes by “IQ,” has been a hit ever since first popping up in Ide’s brilliant debut crime thriller, IQ (2016). Similar to Sherlock Holmes, but set in LA’s urban setting, IQ operates as an unconventional private investigator, often trading his services for whatever his clients can afford. But as his reputation has grown on the streets of East Long Beach, so to have Ide’s stories, with Hi Five, which was released in early 2020, proving to be his most daring plot to date.
For his fifth book, Ide is promising readers his biggest twist to date, and while little else is known about the plot itself, that’s more than enough to get readers excited about whatever the author has planned.
See the cover art and plot synopsis below.
In East Long Beach, California, 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.
A high school dropout, Isaiah Quintabe’s unassuming nature disguises a ferocious intelligence. Most people call him IQ. Word has gotten around: if you’ve got a problem, Isaiah will solve it, his rates adjustable to your income or lack thereof.
In this fifth book in the IQ series, IQ is back, with the same larger-than-life characters and pulse-pounding action fans love–all leading up to a twist even a genius can’t see coming.
Joe Ide is of Japanese American descent. Growing up in South Central Los Angeles, Joe’s favorite books were the Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes stories. The idea that a person could face the world and vanquish his enemies with just his intelligence fascinated him. Joe went on to earn a graduate degree and had several careers before writing his debut novel, IQ, inspired by his early experiences and his love of Sherlock Holmes. Joe lives in Santa Monica, California.
IQ fans looking to pre-order Smoke can now do so here or anywhere else books are sold.
Praised as “One of the hardest working, most thoughtful, and fairest reviewers out there” by #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Scottoline, Ryan Steck has “quickly established himself as the authority on mysteries and thrillers” (Author A.J. Tata). Steck also works full-time as a freelance editor and pens a monthly thriller column for CrimeReads. For more information, be sure to follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He currently lives in Southwest Michigan with his wife and their six children.