The Sleepwalker

The dark and addictive thriller

‘He said he didn’t remember killing them…’ 
 
As a series of rolling blackouts plunge the city into darkness, Detective Aidan Waits sits on an abandoned hospital ward, watching a mass murderer slowly die. Transferred from his usual night shift duties and onto protective custody, he has just one job… 
 
To extract the location of Martin Wick’s final victim before the notorious mass murderer passes away. 
 
Wick has spent over a decade in prison, in near-total silence, having confessed to an unspeakable crime that shocked the nation and earned him the nickname of The Sleepwalker. 
 
But when a daring premeditated attack leaves one police officer dead and another one fighting for his life, Wick’s whispered last words will send Waits on a journey into the heart of darkness… 
 
Manipulated by a reticent psychopath from his past, and under investigation from his new partner, Detective Constable Naomi Black, Waits realises too late that a remorseless contract killer is at work. 
 
Can Aidan Waits solve his last case before fleeing justice? 
 
Or will his name be next on the hit list?

Detective Aidan Waits has one job: to extract the location of Martin Wick’s final victim before he passes away. But Wick’s whispered final words tell of a contract killer at work…and Aidan's name is next on the list.

‘Knox’s pitch-black novels are among crime fiction’s most compelling’

‘Fierce, funny and flint-sharp. Joseph Knox is the true grit of Brit noir'

Dark, gritty and compelling, this will have you turning the pages until the early hours of the morning

Oozing dread, full of surprises and with a powerful sense of outraged humanity, The Sleepwalker is Joseph Knox’s finest novel yet.

‘[An] ingenious plot … full of striking revelations’

Unflinching, fearsomely realistic, superb...The Aidan Waits series has the makings of a classic of the genre.

Knox is proving to be amongst the most pithy of British crime writers, and his exuberant novels are among the best in the current field

mesmerizing depictions of Manchester by night; a plot that is baroque in its shimmering complexity and overall, an hallucinatory power that borders on the uncanny

brilliant ... displays all the virtues of a high-energy police procedural while being spiritually and tonally in thrall to classic PI fiction, with a cumulative hallucinatory power that borders on the uncanny.

The Sunday Express, Thrillers of the Year

Joseph Knox was born and raised in and around Stoke and Manchester, where he worked in bars and bookshops before moving to London. Now living in Shropshire, Joseph runs, writes and reads compulsively. His debut novel Sirens was a bestseller and has been translated into eighteen languages. The Smiling Man and The Sleepwalker are the second and third books in the series, and his first standalone, True Crime Story, was a critical and commercial success.

The Smiling Man

________ 
 
‘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. 
________ 
 
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 . . . 
________ 
 
'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

How do you solve the murder of a man who doesn't exist? Detective Aidan Waits returns in a brilliantly gritty crime novel.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Razor-sharp urban noir – very special indeed.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Julia Heaberlin, author of Black Eyed Susans

An amazing thriller. Sexy, stylish suspense.

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

Sirens

Aidan Waits Series Book 1

‘Brooding, blistering. Sirens is a remarkable literary thriller, perfect for fans of Ian Rankin and James Lee Burke’ AJ Finn, author of The Woman in the Window 
 
 
WATERSTONES THRILLER OF THE MONTH 
 
I stopped going to work. I went missing. We still live in a world where you can disappear if you want to. Or even if you don't. 
 
Detective Aidan Waits is in trouble 
 
After a career-ending mistake, he’s forced into a nightmare undercover operation that his superiors don’t expect him to survive. 
 
Isabelle Rossiter has run away again 
 
When the teenage daughter of a prominent MP joins Zain Carver, the enigmatic criminal who Waits is investigating, everything changes. 
 
A single mother, missing for a decade 
 
Carver is a mesmerising figure who lures young women into his orbit – young women who have a bad habit of disappearing. Soon Waits is cut loose by the police, stalked by an unseen killer and dangerously attracted to the wrong woman. 
 
How can he save the girl, when he can’t even save himself? 
 
 
* 
 
Reader reviews: 
 
'It is an utterly brilliant debut novel; dark, gritty, menacing and meaningful.' ***** 
 
'Compulsive reading, so well written that even the gruesome cruelty and sense of helplessness in a dark world seemed right.'***** 
 
'Knox is always one-step ahead, deceiving the reader and creating a sexy, stylish world always with danger around every corner.' ***** 
 
* 
 
The bestselling debut from the winner of the Sky Arts Writer of the Year Award, the next big name in crime fiction - Joseph Knox.

Sirens is the brooding and assured debut from Joseph Knox, the next big name in crime fiction.

Knox presents the city as pungently and uncompromisingly as Ian Rankin does Edinburgh

A firecracker of a crime tale. His writing is taut, atmospheric and studded with eye-catching descriptions. An arresting new talent.

The dark, gritty underbelly of Manchester is captured with eviscerating authenticity in this debut . . . This is urban noir at its freshest and most ferocious.

A noir in that great tradition of the American writers James M Cain and Dashiel Hammet . . . it reminded me a bit of Chandler’s LA, the whole city is corrupt, the authority figures are as bad as the criminals.

Jumps straight into the top league of English noir.

This is an excellent read; it feels both classic and completely new and is remarkably assured for a first outing.

A down and dirty slice of Manchester noir . . . Impressively bleak.

Page-turner is the only word for it.

Brooding, blistering. Sirens is a remarkable literary thriller, perfect for fans of Ian Rankin and James Lee Burke

A.J. Finn, bestselling author of The Woman in the Window

Imposter Syndrome

Lynch arrives in London, looking over his shoulder for a past he cannot escape. His phone is dead, he has no money, no contacts. He is alone. Until he runs into a wealthy young woman, Bobbie Pierce, who mistakes him for her brother, Heydon, who disappeared 5 years ago without a trace. The resemblance is striking. Or so she says. 
 
At her suggestion, Lynch goes to the luxurious Pierce family home, posing as Heydon to try and con some money out of them. But far from succeeding, his subterfuge is instantly discovered, forcing him into a devil&rsquo;s bargain &ndash; their silence for his cooperation in finding out what really happened to Heydon. 
 
But Lynch&rsquo;s investigation goes too deep and soon reveals the dark world in which Heydon Pierce was immersed - and the dangerous and powerful people who hunt there. It seems that everyone has good reasons to keep Heydon buried in the past. In such a conspiracy of mirrors, just one thing is certain: the only person he can trust is himself. 
 
Like its award-winning predecessor, True Crime Story, Imposter Syndrome takes the reader on a dizzying journey into a landscape where the difference between fact and fiction is almost impossible to distinguish. It thrillingly confirms Joseph Knox as one of the most innovative and daring of the UK&rsquo;s contemporary crime writers.

Joseph Knox was born and raised in and around Stoke and Manchester, where he worked in bars and bookshops before moving to London. Now living in Shropshire, Joseph runs, writes and reads compulsively. His debut novel Sirens was a bestseller and has been translated into eighteen languages. The Smiling Man and The Sleepwalker are the second and third books in the series, and his first standalone, True Crime Story, was a critical and commercial success.

Joseph Knox

The Times Number One Bestseller

'A triumph. Dazzlingly original' Sunday Times 
'Riveting and relentless...A unique story, brilliantly told' Terry Hayes 
'Brilliant, compelling and original' Steve Cavanagh 
'Highly original and mischievous' John Boyne 
______________ 
 
'What happens to those girls who go missing? What happens to the Zoe Nolans of the world?' 
 
In the early hours of Saturday 17 December 2011, Zoe Nolan, a nineteen-year-old Manchester University student, walked out of a party taking place in the shared accommodation where she had been living for three months. 
 
She was never seen again. 
 
Seven years after her disappearance, struggling writer Evelyn Mitchell finds herself drawn into the mystery. Through interviews with Zoe's closest friends and family, she begins piecing together what really happened in 2011. But where some versions of events overlap, aligning perfectly with one another, others stand in stark contrast, giving rise to troubling inconsistencies. 
 
Shaken by revelations of Zoe's secret life, and stalked by a figure from the shadows, Evelyn turns to crime writer Joseph Knox to help make sense of a case where everyone has something to hide. 
 
Zoe Nolan may be missing presumed dead, but her story is only just beginning. 
______________ 
 
Readers love TRUE CRIME STORY: 
 
'Perfectly combines the best parts of true crime, fiction and mystery. Superb' 
'My favourite read of 2021...fascinating, perplexing and bloody brilliant' 
'I've been looking for something different and new in the crime genre. Here it is'

Joseph Knox

True Crime Story

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