Hi Five

By: Joe Ide

Narrated by: Zeno Robinson

Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's Summary

One woman. Five personalities. 

Private investigator IQ is back to piece together a Newport Beach murder with an eyewitness who gives "people person" a whole new meaning.

Christiana is the daughter of the biggest arms dealer on the West Coast, Angus Byrne. She's also the sole witness and number one suspect in the murder of her boyfriend, found dead in her Newport Beach boutique. Isaiah Quintabe is coerced into taking the case to prove her innocence. If he can't, Angus will harm the brilliant PI's new girlfriend, ending her career.

The catch: Christiana has multiple personalities. Among them, a naïve, beautiful shopkeeper, an obnoxious drummer in a rock band, and a wanton seductress.

Isaiah's dilemma: No one personality saw the entire incident. To find out what really happened the night of the murder, Isaiah must piece together clues from each of the personalities...before the cops close in on him.

©2020 Joe Ide (P)2020 Little, Brown & Company

Critic Reviews

"In Edgar-finalist Ide's stellar fourth IQ novel...readers will root for Ide's distinctive lead every step of the way. This innovative series continues to show promise for a long, high-quality ." (Publishers Weekly)

"Ide goes dark with the skill of a noir master, leaving Isaiah in a very bad place and the reader gasping for breath. A stunning change of pace from one of crime fiction's new stars." Booklist, starred review)

"Mystery and detection compete with a gorgeous swarm of supercharged personalities on their own wild rides." (Kirkus)

I love IQ

I’m a total fan of Joe IDE and IQ. His characters and words just jump to life. I can’t say Hi Five is my favorite, however, but I fully believe it’s due to the absence of Sullivan Jones as the narrator. Sullivan is IQ! Zeno Robinson’s performance isn’t horrible by any means but he just doesn’t bring IQ ‘s character, humor and style to life. That being said, don’t miss this latest installment in the series. Interesting concept and storyline as usual.

Disappointing

I loved the first three books. They are edgy, funny and kept you guessing. The characters are interesting and have just the right echo of Sherlock Holmes. Hi Five is not the same level of book. First, where is Sullivan Jones? Seriously? His voice is perfect with different characterizations for Dodson, Junior, Deronda and especially Isaiah. Zeno is ok but a far cry from Sullivan. All of the characters sound pretty much the same. Not sure why you would need a change. Second, the characters seem to be off. Dodson is whiny and IQ is not an introspective. Needless to say I am disappointed.

Disappointing

I could not get enough of the series until this book. It’s as if someone else wrote this book. Too many plots, subplots that are ridiculous. IQ’s reasoning and pondering is contrived, unbelievable and well, not the same IQ as previous books. Change of narrators didn’t help either. I’m so disappointed...

What happened to IQ

The premise of IQ was he was really smart. That was completely abandoned in this book as he want from genius to Idiot. Loved other books, but this one was awefull

An all right installment

At first I was disappointed to have a new narrator, but once I heard him do Deronda I knew he was just right. I’d be happy to listen to any book he narrates. A few things: 1) Malleable is not pronounced “male-eable” and the “bas” in bas-relief is pronounced “bah,” not like “bass” that rhymes with “ass.” 2) I know that sometimes errors are made in recording and it may be necessary to punch-in to record over a mistake. But we are living in modern times with audio tools like iZotope’s RX7 that can duplicate the ambient background of the recording environment and match the EQ on the voice before and after the punch-in so it won’t be so jarring. That will not, however, fix differences in the narrator’s cadence and intonation. Instead of having the narrator read cold the fragment that’s going to be stuck in to repair the passage in error, it would be far better to have the narrator double track the problematic passage starting a few sentences or an entire paragraph before so that by the time he reaches what needs to be fixed he will have adopted the existing cadence and intonation. Then, after that, match the ambience and clone the EQ. Otherwise it sounds like those stock recordings made with a blank space to stick in the name of whichever city it’s being sent to. That was used to humorous effect in Drop Dead Gorgeous, but it’s just jarring here. 3) The story lacked the more unified feel of the previous books. Dodson and Deronda made their appearances but they weren’t integral to the story and were wasted. It was nice to see TK falling for Dodson’s mother-in-law, but that, as well as Grace’s former artist boyfriend, as well as the back story of the lesbian killers, seemed to be space-filling and peripheral, though not as peripheral as the “Oh, Isaiah got a new girlfriend since the last book that we learn just enough about for her to be used as a plot device to drive the central action of the story,” though as soon as that’s established she disappears to practice Vivaldi for her upcoming solo performance as first chair violinist in the local symphony but without the slightest knowledge that she may not if her hand is broken first should Isaiah fail to uncover the identity of the murderer of some brutal and brutally ugly thug’s much beloved right hand man. And the next time we hear from her is right before the performance, gushing about finding things in the passage she had never heard before, the performance Isaiah missed trying to save her hand from a mangling threat about which she knew nothing and then getting bent out of shape at Isaiah for missing it and then dumping him for having put her in danger. Grace, who is a smart and resourceful girl and as hard as she needs to be for any challenge, somehow becomes amnesiac when Isaiah is snatched by the white supremacists and driven off toward his death at a location unknown to her and entirely forgets to call Dodson for assistance, a guy she knows quite well from the previous book to be a quite resourceful ally of Isaiah and who would have been all too eager to help spring him. Remember the movie The Secret Life of Pets? Remember how unified that story was? Then remember the sequel splitting the action between almost nothing happening with the main characters away in the country and the supporting characters burning up a screen time back in the city until the evil circus trainer with his wolves pursue them to the country where they all just happen to intersect briefly on the circus train before everyone going back to the city for some, presumably unified storyline there that will occur out of sight of us, the viewers? High Five was sort of like The Secret Life of Pets 2, though not as tight. But, given the set-ups for the next book with Dodson and with the peril posed to Deronda, I will still buy the next installment. It has a better than average chance of being as good as the first three. And, hey, not all Thanksgiving dinners with the relatives are as good as others, but you don’t give up on your family.

Disappointing

Every 3-5 chapters theres one worth listening to. I enjoy IQ and looked forward to this new installment but there were too many disjointed plots, soapbox styled monologues, utterly irrational choices that even the more mature narrative voice seemed emotionally stunted. Hope the author goes back to telling stories in the next one.

IQ is my hero!

Joe Ide has another home run in this latest IQ installment! I was a little concerned when I saw it was a different narrator from the first three books, but Zeno Robinson is every bit as good as Sullivan Jones. My only question, "Will IQ ever find peace?" I'm hoping Joe Ide isn't finished with him!

Loved the first book, hated this one

IQ showed none of intelligence he displayed in the first book - he is reckless, endangers lives and needlessly creates enemies.

I didn't even finish this book

** spoiler alert ** I didn't even finish the book. Why? I really like this character IQ but when I got to the point where he insisted that a gang member kill his revel.... that is behavior that I just don't want to read about. This character is suppose to be smart. And I expected more from the author than this.

Ide's off his game with this one

Darker than the other IQ novels, and not quite as dazzling. Ide's writing continues in its cinematic, fast-action style. IQ finds himself helpless - forced to solve a mystery or the bad guys will break his voilinist girlfriend's hands. This reader prefers an IQ with agency - much better when his remarkable intellect is shown driving the action, as in previous books. Or when his nearly-asperger's personality acts as a superpower. That's missing in this book. When he does demonstrate agency, he gets himself irreparably crosswise of literally every street gang in LA, a pack of white supremacists and a psycho gun dealer - too many enemies to resolve by the end. It's no fun to read about an IQ that can't save himself and all the innocent women and doggies with his very large brain. This novel has darker, more f'ed up characters (destructive multiple personalities, too many psychopaths, white supremacists) and fewer flashes of street humor than Ide's previous books in the series. Dotson grows up and becomes melancholy, which is great for Dotson's marriage, but maybe not for fans of the series. Even Deronda faces the music at the end of the story when the reader would surely have her continue to shake her ba-donk-a-donk booty through the pages for relief from the tension and danger that Ide is so good at developing. My favorite sub plot involved TK, who owns the junkyard, as he goes a-courting. Ide really reveals a cool old dude by the end of the story. Grace is back, with a confusing gap in her credibility as a character - is she a violent badass who can keep up with IQ, or a vulnerable artist whose sense of self keeps getting lost with self-absorbed boyfriends? Straddling both doesn't work for this character. I still recommend the book because it's action-packed, holds the reader's interest, and we want to see what happens to these characters to whom we've become attached. But it's the weakest of the series for the lack of weirdo sparkle and the darkness of too many empowered psychos. Nevertheless, I'll be right on board for #5 in hopes that Ide's IQ brings street geek back with gusto. Outstanding narration matches the fast pace of the book.