Brilliant young street detective Isaiah (IQ) Quintabe faces payback from two arch nemeses in Fixit, the sixth book of the always superlative IQ series by Joe Ide (Smoke; Hi Five; Wrecked). Years of stopping bad guys from preying on his East Long Beach, Calif., community have taken a toll on Isaiah in the form of PTSD. A hustler named Manzo placed a bounty on IQ's head, and every cred-seeking thug in town tries to collect on the money offered. Leaving to nurse his wounds, both physical and mental, and keep his loved ones safe, seemed like the smart thing to do at the time. But when you're as good a detective as IQ, there is never just one person after you.
Skip Hanson just got out of prison, and blames IQ for his incarceration. Skip immediately, violently, abducts IQ's girlfriend, Grace. Rescuing Grace is more important to IQ than self-preservation, so he comes roaring back to town. His friends welcome him with open arms and are ready to help but soon recognize something is off with their favorite sleuth, especially when an increasingly frustrated IQ tries solving his Skip problem with bullets instead of his brains. He needs therapy, but time is running out for Grace.
In Fixit, Ide replaces IQ's usual bravado with a deep, humanizing insight into the effects of facing down evil for so long. --Paul Dinh-McCrillis, freelance reviewer