Review: IQ

IQ by Joe Ide
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Isaiah Quintabe, otherwise known as IQ, lives in a run-down, neighborhood in Los Angeles. It’s a neighborhood where the residents don’t bother calling the police because the police don’t respond. Isaiah has a reputation for helping out his neighbors with all kinds of problems. They pay him as they can with food and services.

It all started one day at the laundromat when an older lady told Isaiah the story of how the gifts at her daughter’s wedding were stolen from the hotel. Something just didn’t ring true in Isaiah’s mind, and after thinking about it figured out exactly what had happened. Word got around, and now he’s the neighborhood detective.

The story draws heavily from Sherlock Holmes. IQ has his Watson, his old roommate Dodson. Dodson is a hustler and Isaiah doesn’t really like or trust him, but when Dodson approaches him with an opportunity to actually make some money by using his detective skills instead of being paid in fruit, well, it’s an offer that’s hard to refuse. Unlike Holmes’ Watson, Dodson doesn’t seem to be very impressed with IQ and is always trying to catch him out and prove him wrong. Their relationship and early life are explored through flashbacks.

I really liked this book. I wasn’t sure I was going to when I picked it up from NetGalley, I read the blurb and thought it was just going to be an inner city homage to Sherlock Holmes. In some ways it is, but it’s also so much more than that. I don’t want to get into the case that IQ solves or give too much detail on his personal tragedy because I don’t want to spoil the fun of watching the story unfold. NetGalley gave me an ARC of this book for an honest and unbiased review, but I enjoyed it enough to continue reading past my 50 page cut off point.


View all my reviews