Authors on the Air host Pam Stack welcomes JOE IDE back to the studio for a discussion about the third book in his IQ series, WRECKED. About Joe: Growing up, Mr. Ide lived in two worlds: At home, his stern grandfather collected samurai swords and spoke no English; outside he had mostly black friends. He was never completely at ease in either place, but the experience taught him how to decipher people and how to blend in. He didn’t even blink when I asked whether he hesitated to write books about almost exclusively black characters. “Never occurred to me,” he said. This outsider sensibility combined with a deep knowledge of those South Central streets helped Mr. Ide many decades later when he sat down to write his first novel, about a cerebral private investigator who solves crimes in a community just like the one where he grew up.

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