The Smiling Man
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  • Published: 8 March 2018
  • ISBN: 9781473556478
  • Imprint: Transworld Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Length: 11 hr 8 min
  • Narrator: Lewys Taylor
  • RRP: $22.99
Categories:

The Smiling Man

Formats & editions
Audiobook
8 Mar 2018
Paperback
4 Apr 2019
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From the bestselling author of Sirens, Detective Aidan Waits returns - on the hunt to find the identity of The Smiling Man.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of The Smiling Man by Joseph Knox, ready by Lewys Taylor.

‘I usually experienced the presence of a dead body as an absence, but in this case, it felt like a black hole opening up in front of me’
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.

The tags have been removed from the man’s clothes. His teeth filed down and replaced. Even his fingertips are not his own. Only a patch sewn into the inside of his trousers gives any indication as to who he was, and to the desperate last act of his life…

But even as Waits puts together the pieces of this stranger’s life, someone is sifting through the shards of his own.

When the mysterious fires, anonymous phone calls and outright threats escalate, he realises that a ghost from his own past haunts his every move.

And to discover the smiling man’s identity, he must finally confront his own.

'An arresting new talent' Metro
  • Published: 8 March 2018
  • ISBN: 9781473556478
  • Imprint: Transworld Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Length: 11 hr 8 min
  • Narrator: Lewys Taylor
  • RRP: $22.99
Categories:

About the author

Joseph Knox

Joseph Knox was born and raised in and around Stoke and Manchester, where he worked in bars and bookshops before moving to London. He runs, writes and reads compulsively. His debut novel Sirens was a bestseller and has been translated into eighteen languages.

The Sleepwalker is the third book in the Aidan Waits series.

portrait photo of Joseph Knox

Also by Joseph Knox

Imposter Syndrome
True Crime Story
The Sleepwalker
Sirens
See all

Praise for The Smiling Man

If you liked Sirens, you will love The Smiling Man. Gritty, noir, and packing a punch from the very first page.

Jane Harper, author of The Dry

Sirens was one of the best books published last year and this intense, blackly comic follow-up is just as good. Joseph Knox has conjured up a sense of evil and corruption you can almost smell it.

Jake Kerridge, Sunday Express

Imperfect as Aidan Waits is, the Manchester DC is the shining light in a world peopled by the worst kinds of bad people. This is Knox's second Waits book in what holds the promise of a classic series.

Sunday Times Crime Club

Talents such as Knox rarely emerge more than once in a generation. A crime fiction masterpiece

Metro

Gritty as hell. I loved it! A great urban cop thriller

Ian Rankin

If you like your crime fiction dark, gritty an contemporary, then Joseph Knox’s latest novel is for you . . . dripping with dark humour, written with style, a dark and engrossing ride through the mean streets of Manchester

Clair Woodward, Daily Express

Promises to be a classic series

Guardian

Although nominally a police procedural, The Smiling Man has the sense of place and vivid atmosphere of a classic PI novel. .. Stylish, intelligent and full of heart, Joseph Knox is the best thing to have happened to English crime fiction in years.

Irish Times

You can trace Aidan Waits's lineage direct from Marlowe through Bosch and Rebus — maverick sleuth with a savagely poetic turn of phrase that packs serious observation of the human condition under the laughs — though Waits has the self-sabotage knob turned up to 11. Imperfect as he is, the Manchester DC is the shining light in a world peopled by the worst kinds of bad people. This is Knox's second Waits book in what holds the promise of a classic series.

Sunday Times Crime Club

Waits’ first fictional outing is a shadowy, disturbing narrative and once you start reading it’s hard to resist the call. Sirens is the best British crime debut of the last five years.

Crimescene Magazine

Fresh and darkly stylish, Sirens is a striking debut that marks the arrival of a major new crime writing talent.

Chris Ewan

Sirens immediately feels like a classic, not a debut . . . a book for every crime fan.

Julia Heaberlin, author of Black Eyed Susans

Sirens is a powerhouse of noir. Joseph Knox owns Manchester and paints it in all its grimy colours.

Val McDermid

A fierce, assured and utterly compelling debut . . . A Ross MacDonald for the 21st century.

Stav Sherez

Manchester throbs with lowlife in this startling debut . . . a page-turner with a beating heart. I loved it.

Sarah Hilary

Great read. A powerful piece of Manchester noir, brutal, poignant and dark as tar.

Cath Staincliffe

Razor-sharp urban noir – very special indeed.

Lee Child

An amazing thriller. Sexy, stylish suspense.

A. A. Dhand

A dark, dangerous noir, Sirens will be one of 2017’s smash hit debuts.

Nick Quantrill
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