But down these mean streets a man must go.

Author : Joseph Knox
Title : The Smiling Man
Published :08/03/2018
Pages : 416
Genre  : Crime Thriller
Publisher : Doubleday

       Disconnected from his history and careless of his future, Detective Aidan Waits has resigned himself to the night shift. An endless cycle of meaningless emergency calls and lonely dead ends. Until he and his partner, Detective Inspector Peter ‘Sutty’ Sutcliffe, are summoned to The Palace, a vast disused hotel in the centre of a restless, simmering city. There they find the body of a man. He is dead. And he is smiling.

     It's not often I'm drawn to signed editions of books, but while going through the crime section in a bookstore I saw this one. It was enough for me to pick a copy up a scan the blurb. What followed grabbed my attention a dark story of a detective on the hunt for an identity of a murdered man who has been stripped of anything that might give a clue to who he is. Not to mention the very creepy state in which he was left. It was also the fact that it was set in my home country, It's not often I pick a book upset in England. For some reason, it's not something I do very often. 

     Detective Aidan Waits is possible one of the most broken detectives I have come across in recent years. He is a man wrecked by his past and drug abuse, I found my self-wondering how he still functioned in his job. He is a man driven to hunt out justice in whatever form crosses his past. This is also the source of much of his trouble, Being so headstrong leads him at times to leap before he thinks. In a world of gangsters and crooks, he is a constant thorn in their sides. But for his many faults, he is very good at what he does. A dark avenger in a city ravaged by a dark heart. Dragged along in his quest is Sutty who with the best will in the world should also probably not be a police officer. He is an angry man who would seem to hate everyone he comes into contact with, This includes his partner. For Sutty's part, he just wants to write off this crime as a suicide and get back to doing as little as possible.  

     On his path to find the killer of the smiling man Aidan meets a cross-section of Manchester seeder underworld. From crooked and more than a little creepy club owner to the head of a crime family. with a past contenting him to the detective. While they all seem a little larger than the life they fit perfectly within the constraints of the story. What the author gave me was a noir story in the very best tradition. All the time I was reading this book it took me back to the books I had read growing up. With the likes of Chandler, Ellroy, and Hammett rolling around in my head reading this were like going back to spend time with these authors. But Knox doesn't just copy these authors he not only gives it his own take but adds a healthy dose of Britishness to it. 

     The book flows to the rhythm of to those dark place that most would only see passing by in a taxi. He gives us a world of dirt and decay to which our hero feels right at home. With such a premise the story was bound to only go a certain way. He digs down deeper into each chapter, slowly showing us not only the facts of the present but also delving into Aidan's own tragic past. For me, it was hard to put this book down. the author captures you in the first chapter. I haven't read the first in this series but within the first couple of chapter, I was given a real sense of not only the sort of characters I was dealing with but the world they inhabit. This I think is a great testament to the authors work he gives us a hero and story that we can feel empathy for. All of this is wrapped up in a mystery that is well thought out and intelligently delivered. Pulp fiction for the modern age and I for one thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to reading more from Knox.