' Joe Ide is the best new discovery I've come across in a long time & Isaiah Quintabe is the kind of sleuth not seen on the mystery landscape before' Michael Connelly THE TIMES CRIME BOOK OF THE MONTH ' Full of humour originality & high-quality writing'WINNER of the ANTHONY AWARD for Best Debut the SHAMUS AWARD for BEST FIRST PI NOVEL the MACAVITY AWARD for Best First Novel; SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2017 EDGAR AWARD & STRAND CRITICS AWARDEast Long Beach The LAPD is barely keeping up with the high crime rate Murders go unsolved the elderly are being mugged children go missing But word has spread if you've got a case the police can't
- or won't
- touch Isaiah Quintabe will help you out They call him IQ He's a loner & a high school dropout his unassuming nature disguising a relentless determination & a fierce intelligence His clients pay him whatever they can afford a new set of tyres or some homemade muffins But now he needs a client who can pay & the only way to that client is through a jive-talking low-life drug dealer he thought he'd left behind Then there's the case itself A drug-addled rap star surrounded by a crew of flunkies who believes his life is in danger; & a hit man who even other hit men say is a lunatic If he solves this case IQ can put right a mistake he made long ago If not it won't just be the hit man coming after him