The Smiling Man by Joseph Knox

This is the author’s second novel and a sequel to his incredibly impressive debut, Sirens (you can read my review of Sirens here:https://bit.ly/2znmENN). Once again, we’re with Detective Aidan Waits, a deeply flawed officer with Greater Manchester Police. Waits has a history of drug abuse and corruption, he’s also a man with many enemies having been pressed into undercover work in the plot of Sirens against some of Manchester’s biggest crime gangs. 

In The Smiling Man, we find Waits relegated to the night shift, alongside his partner, DI Peter “Sutty” Sutcliffe. Sutty is another deeply flawed character; obnoxious, a man who revels in the misery of those he encounters. The night shift they’re assigned to entails patrolling the city in an unmarked car, responding to any call outs that might require a CID presence. They then hand the cases over to the “proper” CID in the morning. So, it’s a dead-end and thankless shift, a graveyard for problem officers such as Sutty and Waits.

One night, the two are called to an incident at The Palace, a derelict hotel. There they find the night-watchman has been assaulted and upstairs, on the fourth floor, a corpse with a rictus smile. The labels of the man’s clothes have been cut out, his teeth and fingerprints altered, nothing on his person to identify him. The case is going nowhere and Sutty and Waits are allowed to keep ownership, Sutty wanting to close it down as suicide for his stats (the assault on the security guard written off as a coincidence). Waits, at heart having a core of decency, won’t let it lie however and begins to investigate. 

There are a number of strong subplots supporting this central tale – a vulnerable student in need, a ghost from Waits’ past rearing its head to torment him. Together with the main plotline they create a compelling tale. Some reading this might spot a flaw: would CID really allow Sutty and Waits to keep the case of The Smiling Man for themselves? Would it not be subject to the full murder inquiry treatment? Of course, the answer is yes, but this misses the point.

One of the things I loved about Sirens, and equally enjoyed when reading The Smiling Man, is a certain confidence to not be too realistic. That might sound counter-intuitive, but to my mind too many crime writers try too hard to pursue realism. They research police procedure ad nauseum and try desperately to make their books as accurate as can be. Joseph Knox has sidestepped that urge. First, in Sirens, he made Waits an undercover officer on a deniable op, thus freeing him of the need to adhere to the rules. In The Smiling man he performs a similar trick with his graveyard night shift. Yes, in the real world The Smiling Man case would likely be taken off him and Sutty, but Knox writes so well, crafts such a convincing narrative – a Manchester and Great Manchester Police almost dystopian in its dysfunction – that the artistic license is believably compelling.

I so happened to read The Smiling Man when the GMP was in the headlines for all the wrong reasons, a number of corruption scandals rumbling away in the news. It made for an ominous drumbeat to Knox’s fictional vision and if nothing else the reports might have given him ideas for future outings in the series. Like Sirens before it, The Smiling Man is a brilliant novel. Bring on book three!

5 out of 5 stars