Thrillers by Connelly and Ide tour seamy L.A.

Unlike most of Connelly’s Bosch books, “Two Kinds of Truth” has an expository quality that almost begs a “ripped-from-theheadlines” promo line.

Connelly, perhaps tapping his former life as a reporter, pushes Bosch into an undercover investigation that provides a top to bottom examination of the nation’s opioid crisis.

Or make that bottom to top. It starts with his infiltration of a clinic as a pill shill, moves to his recruitment by a criminal syndicate and ends with his discovery of secret drug camps on the edge of the Salton Sea.

As Bosch chases the pharmacy killers, the allegations of corruption chase him. The stakes are high. If the conviction is overturned, a vicious sexual predator will be set free.

LAPD brass and the DA’s office seem willing to believe Bosch set up the frame and are prepared to feed him to the media as a cop gone bad. In vintage Bosch fashion, he launches his own counter-offensive to clear his name and keep the killer behind bars.

For Bosch, the consummate good guy, there’s good and there’s bad and little in between.

So it should come as no surprise that Connelly avoids wrapping up his tale with a cynical ribbon. Certainly, he must have been tempted. You can see the disillusion coming. And yet.

They are urban-scapes of gangs and graffiti, poverty and crime, despair and distrust. A badge won’t find truth here. That requires an insider’s understanding and empathy—and IQ.

IQ is Isaiah Quintabe, the genius, selfstyled detective who has crafted a reputation in East Long Beach as a man who can help.

Sure, he once took a rooster as payment, and he has been known to trade his insight for a home-cooked casserole. But he also has rescued a child snatched off the street and stopped a vicious contract killer.

Quintabe was introduced last year in Joe Ide’s superbly crafted, award-winning thriller, “IQ.” Now he’s back in “Righteous,” an equally impressive and even more tightly controlled story.

“Righteous” opens where “IQ” left off, with Quintabe burning for revenge and tracing a new lead in the death of his beloved brother, killed by a hit-and-run driver 10 years earlier.

Marcus’ death made 16-year-old Quintabe an orphan, shattering any hope he had of college and escape from the grid of Section 8 apartments, fast food joints and liquor stores wedged against the Los Angeles River and Highway 1.

Quintabe escaped his grief by shutting himself off emotionally and using cases to take refuge inside his mind. He has built a reputation as an unofficial private investigator, able to navigate the tribal territories of rival gangs and neighborhood warlords.

But now he’s resumed his hunt for his brother’s killer and he is determined that nothing will stop him. Except, perhaps, a new case.

It comes in the form of an entreaty from his brother’s old girlfriend. Her sister needs help in Las Vegas, and it’s not the kind of help you can get from police. Janine Van is an up-and-coming DJ in the Vegas club scene. But she and her degenerate gambler boyfriend are in deep to loan sharks.

Quintabe, aided by career-criminal and sometimes-friend Dodson, arrive in Where: Doubletree Resort Hilton Paradise Valley, 5401 N Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale. Admission: Free, $29 for Connelly’s “Two Kinds of Truth”, $26 for Ide’s “Righteous”. Details: 480-947-2974, poisonedpenevents.com.

Las Vegas to find Janine is being hounded by a vicious Asian street gang. In an effort to get out from under her debts, Janine has unwittingly stolen information that could expose an international human trafficking ring. If that isn’t bad enough, her boyfriend attempts to blackmail a Triad accountant.

Ide is anything but conventional. He alternates chapters between Quintabe’s quest to find his brother’s killer at home and his efforts save Janine in Las Vegas without pinning either case in time. The result is a double-helix of storytelling that winds tighter and tighter.

He shifts perspective as well, giving us insights into a panoply of carefully crafted characters; pimps, prostitutes, gangbangers, hoodlums, victims and heroes.

Ide’s books are marketed as a kind of urban take on Sherlock Holmes. But that is an unfair and cheap comparison. Ide’s thrillers are more heart than style, more “The Caveman’s Valentine” than “A Study in Scarlet.” And, man, are they funny.

Quintabe’s deductions are not flights of self-aggrandized fancy but immediate and relevant. And while his life might tragic, it is grounded by a deeply felt connection to real people and places.

Quintabe is not confined by the restraints of a traditional PI novel. His backstory is being honed with each book.