Description

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‘Gritty as hell. I loved it. A great urban cop thriller’ Ian Rankin

As heard on BBC Radio 5 Live Phil Williams Show

From the bestselling author of Sirens, Detective Aidan Waits is on the hunt to find the identity of The Smiling Man.
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A body has been found on the fourth floor of Manchester’s vast and empty Palace Hotel. The man is dead. And he is smiling.

The tags have been removed from his clothes. His teeth have been replaced. Even his fingertips are not his own. Only a patch sewn into his trousers offers any information about him.

Detective Aidan Waits and his unwilling partner, DI Sutcliffe, must piece together the scant clues to identify the stranger. But as they do, Aidan realises that a ghost from his past haunts the investigation. He soon recognises that to discover who the smiling man really is, he must first confront the scattered debris of his own life . . .
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‘Talents such as Knox rarely emerge more than once in a generation. A crime fiction masterpiece’ ***** Metro

‘Packing a punch from the very first page. You will love The Smiling Man’ Jane Harper, author of The Dry

Publisher Review

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 * Gritty as hell. I loved it! A great urban cop thriller -- Ian Rankin 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 * Razor-sharp urban noir - very special indeed. -- Lee Child Sirens is a powerhouse of noir. Joseph Knox owns Manchester and paints it in all its grimy colours. -- Val McDermid