Sirens by Joseph KnoxMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Joseph Knox's debut is excellent. A dark noir set in a dark wintry Manchester, Sirens takes the reader into the city's drug culture in the company of DC Aidan Waits, a user himself, a troubled young man whose police career seems to be on a downward spiral when we meet him and whose prospects aren't improved much by the undercover assignment he 'accepts'. As Waits investigates the disappearance of a politician's daughter, death, both accidental and homicide, is never far away. The violence is sudden and shocking, the atmosphere nihilistic at times. Like the Joy Division albums, whose titles are shared by the sections of the novel, there is little humour here but the writing is gritty and realistic.
Sirens reminded me a lot of two other first novels which took my breath away recently - Dodgers by Bill Beverly & A Lesson In Violence (She Rides Shotgun) by Jordan Harper - and I look forward to reading the follow up, The Smiling Man, soon.
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