The Smiling Man

Aidan Waits, the narrator, is a former drug user in Manchester, England, who engaged in criminal activity before he hit bottom. Waits has stopped using speed, cocaine, and Ecstasy (although he still relies on alcohol to anesthetize himself), and is employed as a police officer on the lowly night shift. Aidan is partnered with Peter Sutcliffe (Sutty), a foul-mouthed, nasty, and lazy detective inspector, who tries to bait him with a steady flow of insulting remarks. Aidan’s boss, Superintendent Parr, “a man who casually snuffed out dreams and made nightmares come true,” despises Waits, but is keeping him on the force because he relishes having a compromised officer at his mercy. One night, Aidan and Sutty respond to a call show more concerning a reported break-in at a hotel that is up for sale. The two cops find a security guard who was hit on the head, in addition to a dead body on the fourth floor. The corpse is “The Smiling Man,” the title of an offbeat thriller by Joseph Knox. The unidentified victim has a ghastly grin on his face.

Interspersed through the novel are disturbing chapters about an unnamed boy who is used as a foil by a sadistic, manipulative, and abusive thug named Bateman. With the youngster’s help, Bateman gains access to homes from which he steals valuables. The child is emotionally traumatized by the deeds he is forced to do and the horrors he witnesses. At first, we do not know exactly how this subplot fits in with the overall story. Waits proceeds to interview the owners of the Palace and anyone else who may have information to share. He suspects that there something strange going on in this place, but he cannot immediately put his finger on what it is. In addition, Waits targets a man who is harassing a young college student.

“The Smiling Man” is a violent, profane, and disturbing work of fiction about a wretched soul who feels as if he has nothing left to lose. The descriptive writing is terrific, and the dark atmosphere is laden with menace. Waits has already wrecked his relationship with a girl whom he cared for; he has no family from whom he can seek solace; and he is barely hanging onto his low-level job. Knox writes powerfully about the dregs of society—individuals who are lustful, arrogant, greedy, power-hungry, selfish, and brutal. There is little cheer to be found in these pages, and although Aidan earns our sympathy, he is no model citizen. This suspenseful, gritty and, at times, bewildering book focuses on deeply flawed characters who lack self-control and feel most alive when they are torturing others. Knox holds our attention, but also leaves us dispirited and disgusted by the behavior of warped human beings who abuse vulnerable men, women, and children without a shred of remorse. show less

One of the most spiderweb-strewn, intricate mysteries I've read! Aiden Waits, Detective Constable, is a fully imagined character with a dark past that haunts him and yet also seems to drive his desire to solve a very bizarre case. This past also tags along in occasional misdeeds that have nearly ruined his career as a detective and leave him with a bounty on his head. When Aiden and his partner are called to investigate strange goings on at The Palace, an empty-but-for-the-security-guard hotel, they find the guard has been knocked over the head, but alive. Aiden sees a shadow at the end of the hallway and races to find whoever it is but finds instead a man, dead, sitting facing a window. Tags cut out of his clothing, fingerprints show more medically removed, no identification, and words torn out of a book sewn into his clothing......a man who was dying of cancer in the near future, but poisoned and left with a grimace on his face that earns him the name "The Smiling Man". Knox keeps you on the edge of your seat as Aiden tries to keep himself on the right track and to solve this case, following leads that most would not even see as possibilities. And throughout he is plagued by vivid and violent dreams of his youth and a man who has returned to haunt him in person now that he has been released from prison, convinced that the boy he knew twenty years ago still knows where the money from a decades past heist can be found. It's clear that Aiden keeps his distance from most people, but you cannot help but feel compassion for the boy that he was and the life he endured and understanding for choices he has made, even when on the wrong side of the law. Fantastic read and highly recommend! Hope to see more Aiden in the future. show less

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, show more 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 downbeat, darkly funny, with flashes of startling imagery. Knox has created a world that is both unmistakably Manchester and uniquely his own.

I received a copy of The Smiling Man from the publisher via Netgalley.
This review first appeared on my blog katevane.com/blog show less

Intelligent, compelling and entertaining. What makes this different from other thrillers is how complexly the author potraits damaged people. He makes them have so much humanity that you end up liking them, even though they're horrible human beings.

The Smiling Man – A Manc Noir Classic

Joseph Knox has created a defective detective series based around, bent, possibly corrupt copper trying to go straight, Aidan Watts. A detective whose city beat is around the City Centre of Manchester, and the places do exist, even if a bit of artistic licence is used. An example being St Mary’s hospital, you will find it is the maternity hospital, the MRI is around the corner, which has the A & E. But that is me being a pedant, sorry.

Aidan Watts has been dumped on permanent night duty, serving alongside Detective Inspector Peter ‘Sutty’ Sutcliffe, both neither liked or trusted by senior officers. The night shift being nothing but endless emergency calls and dead ends, anything of interest show more passed on to the day shift.

One night in the middle of a very hot summer in the city they are called out to an incident at the disused, and up for sale, Palace Hotel. When they get their they find the security guard is knocked out, he hears voices and someone escaping down the fire escape. He goes up a floor to room 413, where he finds a dead man who is smiling.

All identifying tags on the man’s clothing has been removed and there are no other means of identification. As Waits slowly pieces together the identity of the mystery man, the investigation gains more dead bodies which seem to send them in another direction. Even when they think they have and identity, not everything is as it should seem. He has warring owners to deal with, worried that the murder will hold up the sale, a solicitor in Thailand who cannot be contacted. And officers and a forensic team that does not trust Waits as far as they can throw him.

Things are not made any easier with a Superintendent that would love to get rid of him, another investigation that brings him in to contact with a Z list celebrity, who needs to be dealt with. But his biggest problem is the blast from the past that has come back into his life to haunt him. Like his murder investigation he has realised that he needs to deal with the past to face down the future.

Is Waits a bent copper or just blurs the lines? Will he be able to deal with his past? We finally get the back story to what has formed Waits as the person he is. Whether he is likable is a different matter, but he does make for a gripping character.

An excellent thriller, and I hope there is much more to come from this series. show less

I am not sure how this book got so many 5 star reviews. The author can definitely write interesting characters but the story in this case was the downfall it took forever to develop, there were too many unneeded details that ultimately had no bearing on the story, and the intertwining of 3 storylines doesn’t really come together.
Yeah this book was well written but the story or more accurate the stories just weren’t told well nor were they that interesting, so the book just dragged on.

This book grabbed me at the Prologue and never let go. Great cast of characters with plots and sub-plots galore. It feels a little muddled late in the story but finally there is an ending that pulls all the pieces together. I did not read the author's first book, Sirens, but will definitely go back to read it now.