Joe Ide, Weidenfeld & Nicholson

This is the fourth in Joe Ide’s ‘IQ’ series of LA-set crime thrillers, and it’s as high-octane as ever and packing plenty of heart. IQ is Isaiah Quintabe, a young black man who is semi-legendary in his hood for his work as a private investigator. His next case, however, is one he doesn’t want to take. It’s at the behest of one of the biggest arms dealers on the West Coast who is threatening to harm Isaiah, and his girlfriend, if he doesn’t get his daughter, Christiania, off a potential murder rap. Trouble is Christiania has a multiple personality disorder and she is also Jasper, Marlene, Pearl and Bertrand. Isaiah must work out who saw, and did, what. As usual Ide populates his story with a Day-Glo cast of characters – including white supremacists, bickering assassins and sundry gang members – in a tale, which, with it’s mix of grit and an almost cartoon-like sense of outlandishness, calls to mind Chester Himes’ ‘Harlem’ series of novels of the 1950s and 60s.