Trouble Is What I Do

Trouble Is What I Do by Walter Mosley, 166 pages

Private eye and "fixer" Leonid McGill is minding his own business when he receives a blast from the past: a notorious assassin has sent a 94-year-old man to McGill to ask him to help deliver a letter to a soon-to-be-married southern belle. What seems like a simple task is soon revealed to be more complex and dangerous than McGill suspected, as the bride's white supremacist father has taken a hit out on the old African American man.

The story's a bit muddier than it needs to be, with lots of recollections breaking in and no chapters to sort them out, but this is a noir novel that handles a lot of racial issues with care and nuance. I like it more in retrospect than I did while reading it, I think.

Wrecked

Wrecked: An IQ Novel by Joe Ide, 343 pages.

The third book in Joe Ide's IQ series, Wrecked, does a nice job of continuing the series. Where the second book felt like a bridge between the fresh stand-alone story of  IQ, and the impending series of books-setting up the new partnership between Isaiah and his friend Dodson-the third book takes us in new and interesting directions, as the partnership shows the strain of the two characters differing styles. Isaiah is still the detecting part of the duo, and while some of his deductions seems a little forced, and there is more violence than some might like, this is an interesting and fun read. There are a couple of parallel investigations going on, with Dodson and Isaiah trying to keep their own secrets, but it all works out fairly well. An interesting detective story.

Wrecked

Wrecked: an IQ Novel / Joe Ide, 343 p.

This was my first experience with the IQ (Isaiah Quintabe) series, and I plan to go back for more.  IQ's private detective business in Long Beach is just beginning to take off when he meets Grace, an attractive painter who needs help finding her mom Sarah, disappeared 10 years earlier.  Although Isaiah is sure that her disappearance has something to do with Grace's dead father's connection to the military and his time at Abu Ghraib, Grace doesn't want to probe the past.  Told from both Isaiah's point of view and that of a group of former soldiers who did horrible things at Abu Ghraib and are now trying to run from the past, this story is suspenseful, realistic, and psychologically true.

I love the character of IQ, smart and tough but modest and mild-mannered.  He functions as a one-man neighborhood watch, solving problems for people too poor to pay with cash.  As payment, he accepts knitted wool scarves (in LA), window washing, and artwork, among other things.  Well drawn and likable side characters round out an excellent story.