This is an excellent police procedural, with our main man having the usual bag of troubles. Aides Waits' troubled past was actually the highlight of the book for me. A complex set of crimes, knitted together, keeps you on your toes to keep up with all the layers of deception. I will look out for the next book in this series.

I was keen to read this book as it was set in Manchester - my home town. Having not read the first book in this series I did wonder if that would be a disadvantage but whilst there were obvious references to things past that I imagine were covered in the first book it didn't stop it being read as a stand alone. The plot and sub plots were chilling and gripping with many twists and turns that kept me wanting to read the next chapter and the next. Initially I found it hard to warm or connect with any of the characters - DI Peter Sutcliffe, who understandably wanted to be known as Sutty, was a gross individual who had no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Superintendent Parrs also seemed to be a corrupt individual in such a position of power. By the end of the book I still hated both of these characters with a passion. I found it a little bit hard to understand that the main character Aidan Waits was actually still in the police force having been found using drugs and planting evidence. Initially I didn't like his character either but as the book moved on I found myself warming to him as he obviously did have a moral conscience trying to push its way through his dodgy past. I will be interested to read the next installment of this series but would hope that Sutty and Parrs are not permanent features of this series going forward!

Really good book. Plenty of action, a lot of detail in the plot and an edge of the seat read. I definitely want to read more by this author.

I read the debut novel, Sirens,by Joseph Knox last year and I loved it so I have been ridiculously excited to get stuck into the second in his Aiden Waits series, The Smiling Man.

Excited, and a little nervous; you know how it is, that hint of trepidation when you read something by somebody new and you love it and you’re a little scared in case what if the next thing they write *gasp* just isn’t as good. Although, I kind of knew it would be, it was kind of obvious from reading Sirens that it wasn’t some kind of fluke because people don’t write like that by accident you know, it’s a talent, but still, there’s still the teeny little niggle of fear because what if.

WHAT IF.


What if I was less of an idiot because here’s the thing: if Sirens was good then The Smiling Man is better. It’s like Knox was just warming up, just getting into his stride with Sirens because what we have here is something else entirely. We all know I love me a good thriller but we also all know that I love a book that is clever and well constructed and beautifully written. TICK, TICK, TICK and TICK.

I mean, this is some series storytelling; this is everything I love about crime writing, this is everything I love about writing and I need to calm down because I think my excitement is showing. This is what happens when I start writing my review in bed when I’ve just finished the book: word vomit.
Basically, following on from the dramas of Sirens, Aiden Waits, disgraced detective, has been relegated to permanent nightshift, supervised by asshat obnoxious offensive DI ‘Sutty’ Sutcliffe. It’s not the best partnership, partly because they hate each other and partly because Sutty is an obnoxious, offensive asshat and nobody trusts Aiden and they’re both a bit pissed off that they’ve been relegated to investigating middle of the night dustbin fires.

AND THEN THEY FIND A BODY IN AN EMPTY HOTEL.

There’s an injured security guard and an anonymous body, a journalist threatening a young girl with revenge porn, a missing sex worker and quite possibly one of the baddest bad guys I’ve ever read. It’s all going on but it never feels like too much and it’s so damn clever, how it all pieces together. Can I just say here also, that like with Sirens, I loved the Manchester setting; it kind off adds something extra for me, being able to picture it all so clearly and in a weird way, because the things that go on here aren’t pretty, these books kind of feel like Knox’s love letter to his city.

The story is dark, darker than Sirens for sure, and so twisty and so turny and unexpected and I LOVE THAT. I love not knowing where the story is going, and this one builds up so slowly and oh my GOD sometimes it’s just so tense. Tense and intense and I was captivated. I could not put it down. When I wasn’t reading it, I was wishing that I was.

It’s hard hitting but it’s also subtle; there are parts that make you want to look away, that if it were a film you’d watch from behind a cushion or with your face buried in your boyfriend’s chest and then all of a sudden there’s a scene that’s breathtakingly poignant. It’s just…it’s really good writing. Oh, but it’s good writing. This is the kind of writing that gets under your skin, so descriptive it gives you goosebumps, makes you think, picks you up and places you right into the heart of Manchester in a heatwave where a disgraced detective is unable to stop his own spiralling. It’s just..it’s kind of phenomenal is what it is, atmospheric and evocative and really kind of beautiful. I am such a fan of Knox’s writing style. Such a fan. I highlighted SO MANY passages, here, have some of them:

He was at once attracted to, and repulsed by, the people. The boys were all snowflakes and fuckwits, the girls were easy or, worse, feminists, but he’d happily sit in cells, listening to them all night, he’d even drive them home when they were lost or drunk or both. To the untrained eye, these instances could look like sympathy, but in truth he enjoyed seeing people cast low. In truth, he encouraged it. He’d routinely let the names of informants slip to violent criminals, he’d drop young girls working as escorts in the worst parts of town. He told me he’d once attended an AA meeting, poured a bottle of vodka into the free coffee and waited, watching, as people got drunk.

Double-decker buses roared by like bright, empty boxes of light. I’d started to walk back into town when I heard a movement behind me. I turned and saw someone, the shape of a man, standing by the entrance of The Temple. He was in shadow but I must have been back-lit by the street, and I could feel his eyes on me. Neither of us moved for a moment, then I turned and walked away.

The missing missing were people who dropped off the face of the earth and kept on going, with no one in their lives who noticed, or no one in their lives who cared. When they were found dead, with no means of identification, it was almost as though they’d been born that way.

Also also whilst I think probably this book would be ok as a standalone, having read and loved Sirens I loved how it carried on from there; Aiden is such a good character and I loved the way we got to know him in this book, how what I already thought was an excellent and well-developed character really came to life. Aiden’s an interesting protagonist, something different, damaged and tortured and hiding from himself and watching his story evolve alongside the crime he’s fighting to solve is amazing. You read this and you’re watching Aiden’s story wind its way around the dead-body-in-the-hotel story which is tied into a girl who is terrified this guy is going to post a video of them having sex online and then there are these flashback scenes and there are so many threads to this story and they’re winding into and around each other until you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins and you’re turning the pages faster faster faster until you reach this conclusion that whilst it doesn’t tie up all the loose ends still leaves you feeling strangely satisfied. Holy run-on sentence batman.
Knox isn’t just writing a crime story here I don’t think, he’s writing about people and the messed up layers of humanity and where do you go when you’ve hit rock-bottom and there’s no way back up and it’s that – his characterisation, the way he makes you feel about the people he’s drawing so cleverly on his pages that means that despite kind of getting answers you’re left wanting more.
I want so much more. Write another book please Joseph Knox.

Could this be my book of the year? IN MARCH. Well, good luck to all the other books trying to top it is all I can say.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to read this book, the second Aidan Waits novel, as I haven’t read the first book, Sirens. But I was interested by the description of The Smiling Man and the fact that the books are set in Manchester. So, I thought I’d see what it’s like – and I needn’t have worried as it reads well as a stand-alone book. Be aware though (if this bothers you), there are some violent scenes, and one strand of the story concerning a particularly loathsome and brutal character called Bateman and an eight year old boy and his little sister is very chilling.

Aidan Waits is a Detective Constable working night shifts with Detective Inspector Peter Sutcliffe, known as Sutty. They don’t like each other – at all. The only thing they have in common is that they each try to make things as difficult as possible for the other. But strangely their partnership gets results.

The book description sets out the main strand of the plot – the police investigation of the death of the ‘Smiling Man‘ at disused hotel, The Palace, the question of his identity and the motive for killing him, but there are various other strands woven into the narrative that make this a fascinating and complex novel. Waits and Sutty are plain clothes detectives on patrol duty in the city dealing with fires set in steel dustbins when they’re called to Owens Park, student halls of residence, to a complaint of sexual harassment and threats to post a sex video on the internet. Then there’s the mystery of the death of Cherry, a sex worker fished out of the Manchester Canal, and the further complications caused by the owners of the hotel, Natasha and Freddie, at loggerheads over the sale of the hotel.

But overarching the cases he is working on is Waits’ troubled background, some of which I assume was in Sirens. In this book we learn so much about what has made him into such a disturbed and complex character and why other police officers don’t trust him or want to work with him. He plays very close to the edge and has little regard for his own safety.

The location is superb – Manchester in a heatwave – students taking degree courses they’ll never pay off, muggings and drug pushers and the ‘missing missing’ – people who disappear but are never reported missing, so they’re not in any databases. No one is looking for them and if they’re found dead there’s no way of finding out who they were. It’s as they they had dropped off the face of the earth, almost as though they had never been born. Or, as in the case of the ‘Smiling Man‘, their identity has been deliberately obfuscated.

I was totally convinced by Knox’s storytelling, fully absorbed in the characters and intrigued by the various strands, only gradually seeing how they were connected. I had little idea about the culprit until the end. Quite simply, I loved this book and will read more by Joseph Knox, starting with Sirens.

My thanks to Transworld Publishers for a review copy via NetGalley.

I really enjoyed this book. I was not sure what to make of Aidan in book one but his back story in book two has rounded his character out for me. He is still a mass of contradictions but is interestingly so. The murder of the smiling man was very convoluted but kept me interested throughout.

I am not sure that reading this series is enjoyable but I soon become immersed in the stories and want to keep reading. Not a comfortable read.

The smiling man is an intriguing book, full of secrets and lies and betrayals and death. It is a book loosely based in Manchester and its Victorian buildings. It is a book about death and secrets and betrayal. It involves a policeman and his history and then other people and their histories, some are linked and others are their own stories of secrets and lies.
It is an absorbing book, that leaves you wondering until the end.
Highly recommended.

Just when you thought the trope of the world-weary cop with the messed-up life was getting tired, along comes the disturbing and original vision of Joseph Knox.

In The Smiling Man, DC Aidan Waits is exiled to the night shift, paired with an unappealing and idle DI, the unfortunately named Peter Sutcliffe (who understandably prefers to be known as Sutty). He is condemned to rounding up drunks and mundane tasks, like investigating a series of fires in rubbish bins.

Then Aidan is first on the scene of a bizarre death in a closed-down hotel. His superiors want him off the case but he can’t seem to leave it alone. Meanwhile, his troubled past is catching up with him. His present isn’t looking too good either.

In the best noir tradition, Aidan has a complex moral code. Acts of quiet heroism are interspersed with blatant law-breaking and reckless self-sabotage. He operates in a world of corruption and political manoeuvring where everyone has an angle and power is there to be abused.

This is fantastic northern noir, relentlessly deadpan, darkly funny, with flashes of startling imagery. Knox has created a world that is both unmistakably Manchester and uniquely his own.

W o w ! A supernova masterpiece.

Only his second novel, and again a masterpiece by Joseph Knox.

Even more dark, powerful and complex than his first book ... and it works! Everything works beautifully. The story is a finely crafted demon Swiss watch. There is astounding power and confidence in this book. Two books and Knox is already A Master.

Warning: Child peril/abuse in the flashback chapters of the monster Bateman (view spoiler). All are extraordinarily heartless and brutal. You can skim all of them if you wish, but do fully read the critical chapter VI.6 and the subsequent Bateman chapters.

Knox continues the noir atmosphere of beautiful and vulnerable young women: Sophie, Alicia, Amy, Aneesa, Karen, Naomi (Constable Black), and the buzz of beautiful young and penniless students, perhaps doomed. Aidan cannot help himself, he's fated to forever be a moth to their flames. In this, Knox understands our hearts, young and old. There should be a word for it. That phantom limb, reaching out from your chest, towards things you’ll never have. (from "Sirens")



A lifetime of windmills will never change the gallantry and heroism of Aidan regarding beautiful young women. There are more windmills than we can ever conquer. I know. I still sometimes charge at them, holding back the tears.

Unlike the grey, deep cold of "Sirens", this book is set in a blistering summer in Manchester:
The heat that year was annihilating. The endless, fever dream days passed slowly, and afterwards you wondered if they’d even been real. Beneath the hum of air conditioners, the chink of ice in glasses, you could almost hear it. The slow-drip of people losing their minds. The city was brilliantly lit, like an unending explosion you were expected to live inside, and the nights, when they finally came, felt hallucinatory, charged with electricity.

Aidan's loathsome partner on the night shift...
Sutty had no family and no friends that I knew of. The rumour was that he’d once been a promising detective, before he became addicted to human tragedy and was slowly seduced by the night shift... ... He was at once attracted to, and repulsed by, the people. The boys were all snowflakes and fuckwits, the girls were easy or, worse, feminists, but he’d happily sit in cells, listening to them all night, he’d even drive them home when they were lost or drunk or both. To the untrained eye, these instances could look like sympathy, but in truth he enjoyed seeing people cast low. In truth, he encouraged it. He’d routinely let the names of informants slip to violent criminals, he’d drop young girls working as escorts in the worst parts of town. He told me he’d once attended an AA meeting, poured a bottle of vodka into the free coffee and waited, watching, as people got drunk.



The Palace Hotel, Manchester

Discovery of the body...
His own sweat was glazed across his face, and I thought I could feel the heat pouring out of him. He looked well groomed for a midnight intruder, cleanly shaven with a sharp haircut. I stopped when I saw that his eyes were wide open. They were cobalt-blue and staring into the next life like he was done with this one. .... It was his teeth that sent me out of the room, though. The muscles in his mouth had contracted viciously, and locked into a wide, wincing grin.

Aidan at the hospital to interview a witness...
The nurse was a sick-looking man with grey, translucent teeth. He sucked them, audibly, as we walked. I wondered if he’d begun working here as a healthy person and then slowly absorbed the aura of madness and death surrounding him. I wondered what I was absorbing in my line of work...

After the pub, and the tugging of heartstrings with old flame, Sian...
I finished my drink and left to the sound of ‘Tom Traubert’s Blues’, knowing it couldn’t get any better than that, wondering if Sian had put it on the jukebox for old times’ sake. I climbed the stairs feeling loose, absent-minded even, and emerged on to the street still humming the tune. Double-decker buses roared by like bright, empty boxes of light. I’d started to walk back into town when I heard a movement behind me. I turned and saw someone, the shape of a man, standing by the entrance of The Temple. He was in shadow but I must have been back-lit by the street, and I could feel his eyes on me. Neither of us moved for a moment, then I turned and walked away.




The "missing missing" ...
The missing missing were people who dropped off the face of the earth and kept on going, with no one in their lives who noticed, or no one in their lives who cared. When they were found dead, with no means of identification, it was almost as though they’d been born that way.

Aidan tries again to escape himself...
As a boy I’d vanished from foster homes with this [bus station] as my destination. The only fixed idea in my head. Sometimes I got as far as the next city, sometimes I was back in care before they noticed I was gone. I remembered oblivion nights, sleeping outside, waiting for the doors to open, and all of my first kisses, with girls, with drink, with drugs. I remembered running away here as a teenager, with the first love of my life, and coming-to outside the next morning. The girl and the money were both gone, and she’d written a Dear John letter on my left hand in red biro.


The Midland Hotel, Manchester. They said that Hitler had wanted it as the Nazi HQ of Great Britain.


Aidan's fate in love...
Sian wore a shimmering silver dress with her hair pulled up and her porcelain shoulders on show. The sun had started to catch her skin, and a light constellation of freckles was visible about her cheeks. Greeting old friends, pausing for photographs and talking to large circles of people, she was impossible not to look at, impossible not to love. She moved through the party like an aura, and even the places she’d been and gone from held something of her radiance, her afterglow.




Epiphany...
When I got to the door and raised my hand to knock I saw my own reflection. The dark, lived-in suit. The bags under my eyes that I could never quite sleep off. The deep cuts and bruises from my fight with [him], like he’d reached out from inside my head and made the mental scars physical.

I waited for my face to warp and alter in the glass but it didn’t change. It had finally settled on a look and, after months of doubt and confusion, I suddenly recognized myself so well. I was my father’s son. The violent man I thought I was pretending to be.

What an extraordinary book.

What an extraordinary new talent, Joseph Knox. Wow.

ARC courtesy NetGalley.co.uk, Thank you.

I hadn't read the first DC Aidan Waits book, so was at a slight disadvantage in not knowing his previous history. Maybe because of this I took a while to really enjoy this book but I am so glad I persevered. When the smiling body of a man is discovered in a bedroom of an abandoned hotel, Aidan makes it his mission to uncover the reasons for his death. It is a most unusual case however, and just trying to discover his identity seems to pose more questions than answers. Aidan seems to have so many demons himself that it's hard to believe he can fully function as a police officer. Throughout the investigation, Aidan seems to find himself in more trouble than should be necessary. Be it through his own foolishness or just being plain stubborn, he visits some extremely dark places both in reality and mentally. His bleak past has shaped him and he doesn't always conform to the rules that his profession dictates. As I continued reading, I began to understand the man and even warmed to him, willing him to solve the case and come out the other side as a better person. An excellent plot that unraveled in a quite unique way and left few unanswered questions. I look forward to reading the next in the series.

Let me start by saying that I have a little bad habit as a reader: sometimes I read first the second and third book in a series and then, if I like it, I go back and read the first ones (I started reading Harry Potter from the third book because at the time that’s what my local library had). I first heard about Joseph Knox when his debut novel, Sirens, came out and although the reviews were all good, I never got around to read it. But when I started hearing again about this author now that his second book is coming out, I decided that I needed to catch up and I was lucky enough to get my hands on THE SMILING MAN, which can be also read as a stand-alone novel.

The protagonist of the novel and the series is Detective Aidan Waits. He has a history of drug abuse which led him to work the night shift. He had a troubled childhood and he grew up in foster care. He is emotionally damaged, he can’t keep people close to him and nobody in the book likes him. He is passionate about his job – he risks his career for someone he barely knows because he feels compassion for the victims of crime. I found him reckless and irresponsible, but those are qualities that actually make him good at his job. He is full of flaws and problems, but he tries to right his past. Despite all his imperfections and weaknesses, I really liked the character of Aidan, he is what kept me glued to the page of the novel.

Although the character of Aidan is what captivated me most of THE SMILING MAN, the plot is also gripping and absorbing. Aidan and his partner, DI Peter Sutcliffe, are on their night shift when they are called about a break-in in an abandoned hotel. When they arrive they find the night guard unconscious and the body of a man smiling and sitting in a chair in one of the rooms. The investigation is complicated by the fact that the victim seems to be a ghost. He has no ID, the tags on his clothes have been removed, and he doesn’t have any fingerprints. As Aidan tries to investigate the case without much help from his partner or his colleagues who all seem to hate him, he also has to face someone from his past who doesn’t want to let him go.

THE SMILING MAN is chilling, dark, and intense. The characters are well-drawn and complex and, although I couldn’t stand the character of DI Peter Sutcliffe, I enjoyed his working relationship with Aidan and their sharp and ironic exchanges. The author explores in depth the nightlife of Manchester, where the novel is set, and his attention to details made me feel like I was inside the novel.

I found THE SMILING MAN gripping, captivating, and riveting and now I know that I absolutely have to read Sirens.

apart from finding the main protagonist's police partner for night duty utterly repugnant and offensive, putting me off reading, this all seems straightforward enough - the younger man is to be the more acceptable, less creepy one who the women feel safer talking to .. the venom from other officers toward the young man who seems to have had a drug problem, and surprisingly was let off and not sacked for it - this seems straightforward and professional - grubby crimes and unpleasant people all around except for our principal. but Knox is a pro! and has a huge following ...

The Smiling Man by Joseph Knox is the second book featuring Aidan Waits but the first that I have read. I did feel that I missed a bit in not reading the first book Sirens but mostly I managed to follow this book.

Detective Aiden Watts works the night shift in Manchester... mainly being called out to public disturbances and dead ends. One night he and his partner Suttey are called out to an apparent break in at the abandoned Palace Hotel. After finding the security guard knocked out they check the rest of the rooms only to find a another man - this time dead - and he is smiling. There is nothing on the body to distinguish who he is. So the investigation begins.

An enjoyable and sometimes dark story. Thank you to Random House UK/Transwork Publishers, Doubleday and Netgalley for a copy of this book to read and enjoy in exchange for my honest opinions

I don't know how he's done it, but Joseph Knox has managed to top the brilliant Sirens. The Smiling Man, with its fantastic cast, racing plot and one of the most authentic and definitive depictions of Manchester I've ever read, is a show-stopping must-read.

Brilliant book. Loved it. Lots of twists in the plot, a real page turner. Highly recommended. 5 stars

Many thanks to Netgalley and Joseph Knox for the copy of this book. I agreed to give my unbiased opinion voluntarily.

Beautifully atmospheric thriller with a damaged detective as its hero. A mystery of unnamed dead bodies amid details of our hero and his early life and a twisting violent present. Nasty superiors do little to aid our hero and his efforts to discover the truth. It ends in a welter of violence but our man lives to fight another dat. Roll on the next instalment!

Manchester is a vibrant city, but like all major cities there's a darkness at it’s heart, and nowhere is this more visible than on the night shift which Detective Aidan Waits and his partner DI Peter Sutcliffe 'Sutty' inhabit.

After a somewhat dubious lifestyle, including drug abuse, an uncontrollable temper and other misdemeanours, Aidan is resigned to working the night shift with a partner he can't stand, and just for the record, the feeling is mutual.

When they receive a call to attend a break-in at a local disused hotel, it proves to be anything but routine, as a security guard has been attacked with a fire extinguisher and left unconscious, but far worse, they discover a dead man sitting in a chair on the fourth floor - and he's smiling!


The man has no ID on him, all tags have been removed from his clothing, his teeth have been filed down and replaced, but the most intriguing discovery is that his fingerprints have been removed!

I'm not going to give anything away other than that, but if you decide to read The Smiling Man, you will be richly rewarded with an intelligent, well written novel, where the characters come fully fleshed with some extremely entertaining dialogue, displaying sarcasm in spades, but oh boy the humour is just wicked! Of course Aidan Waits is flawed but don't the flawed personalities just make things much more interesting? Discrepancies between suspect/witness accounts lead eventually to a very unusual and unexpected conclusion. The plot is intense and complex, and will require your full attention, but for me, it was definitely worth the investment.

* Thank you to Netgalley, Random House UK, Transworld Publishers for my ARC, for which I have given an honest review*

Thanks to publishers and NetGalley for opportunity to read an advance copy.
Suspect that I may have missed out ofn something by not having read the first in this series prior to this.
Nonetheless a decent read and may well go back and read the first one now.

Sensational and Stunning Manchester Noir! Joseph Knox follows the brilliant Sirens with this incredible sequel that throws light on the flawed DC Aidan Waits devastating and dark history. Waits has been condemned to the never ending night shifts in the midnight city with the trying DI Peter 'Sutty' Sutcliffe, a man obsessed with continually wiping everything with his antiseptic tissues in the sweltering heat. Trash cans are being set alight, and an alt-right journalist, Oliver Cartwright is threatening to post a sex video of Sophie, a student he met at the Innuendo club. Waits tries to resolve Sophie's problem unofficially, only to be warned off Cartwright by Superintendent Parr. Then Waits and Sutty are called to the closed down, dilapidated Palace Hotel where the body of an unidentifiable murdered man is found on the fourth floor with a rictus smile on his face. A parallel storyline runs in the narrative where a young boy, Wally, is being terrifyingly abused and exploited to commit criminal and deadly acts by a sadistic and evil man involved with his mother. Wally's overriding fear is that he will turn his attention to his more sensitive younger sister.

The recession is biting deep in Manchester, igniting boom times for the drug trade, as people look to more affordable ways to escape their misery. The current in vogue drug is 'spice', aka rattle, leaving a trail of death and horror in its wake. There are thousands of deaths of unidentified people, referred to as the missing missing, and rumours of a serial killer, The Pusher. A witness to the death of smiling man, a prostitute, Cherry, is murdered and fished out of the Manchester Canal. The owners of the Palace Hotel, Natasha Reeves and Freddie Coyle, an estranged married couple, appear to have attracted a malign presence into their lives, with the singular purpose of bringing trouble to their doorstep. Waits is getting strange anonymous calls, being followed and receiving threats as his past rears its ugly head, bringing with it life threatening dangers and brutal violence. And if all that is not enough, he is reviled by other police officers, contemptuous of his history with drugs, convinced of his corruption, unwilling to let him get involved in investigations. As his travails look set to bury him, Waits is forced to seek help from the dangerous Zain Carver, and the Thin Man.

Knox gives us an outstanding novel about identity, both The Smiling Man's and Aidan Waits, our flawed and utterly compelling protagonist. Looming large throughout is the strong sense of location that Knox gives us in Manchester, experiencing unusually uncomfortable heat, and where under cover of the night the darkest of deeds and crime proliferate. Waits is an inspiring complex creation, drowning in the wreckage of his life and history, but propelled by an inner need for justice, prepared to break the law to attain it as he crosses lines with impunity, and unwilling to be constrained by those who seek to control him. Crime noir does not get any better this, just simply brilliant and you need to read this! Many thanks to Random House Transworld for an ARC.

I'd not come across this author, Joseph Knox, before however I quickly found his first book Sirens had collected some very good reviews. This one follows on from the first book although I didn't feel I was missing out on anything but not having read it (but I have a copy now). Due to past misdemeanours DC Aidan Waits is put on a permanent night shift with DI "Sutty" Sutcliffe. I quickly realised that they were the perfect crime fighting duo - one untrusted and one appalling! They are left to investigate a series of fires in dustbins. More by accident they are called to what turns out to be a real crime scene. A deserted hotel appears to have been broken into. They find an injured security guard and a dead - smiling - man.

This is a very twisty and twisted investigation and story. Most of the time nothing is quite what it seems. Gradually things come together during the course of this deeply dark story. Aidan - an excellent character - has to come to terms with demons of his own as well as the investigation. Sutty is simply Sutty - not really come across a character quite like him before but he works very well indeed. In addition to these two this book contains a character so deeply nasty; I don't recall reading one quite like this before. There's violence here too and it is nasty sometimes in case that bothers you.

I was immediately caught up in this story and found it very hard to put down. The Manchester setting is good and well used. The main characters were very good indeed - vivid and well developed. In particular the deep deep darkness in Aidan Waits is very effective in my mind. Rereading my notes that I took while reading this the word that keeps cropping up is "dark" and the book certainly is that. However I like some good dark fiction. A couple of my favourites authors are Jo Nesbo and Tim Weaver - they both write dark and write it well. Joseph Knox's writing is up there with them as far as I'm concerned. This is actually quite a simply story - it is very well told however. I'll read the earlier book as soon as I can and I'll be at the front of the queue for the next one. One of the "books of the year" without question.