Aidan Waits is a Manchester detective, working on the night shift with his partner Peter Sutcliffe. Together they make a dour pair, investigating the sordid side of the city. There is a businessman who is pressuring a student to have sex with him. There are random trash can fires downtown. A body is discovered in odd circumstances — the dead man’s face is distorted into a smile, and all identifying information has been stripped from his clothes. Aidan has recently been thrown under suspicion in an incident related to drug use, and his boss is out to get him. In flashbacks we learn about his extremely disturbed childhood which accounts for his comfort with violence and his concern for the vulnerable. But a menacing figure from his past emerges into the present, and Aidan has to deal with that too. 

The world that Joseph Knox portrays is very dark, and no one can be trusted. Just about everyone is selfish and manipulating. The only way to survive is to be suspicious and scheming. There is not much humor here, although Aidan and Sutcliffe do exchange barbed jokes at each other’s expense all the way through. The unabridged audiobook is performed by Lewys Taylor whose performance is appropriately downbeat and gritty. There are many strands here but Knox keeps them tightly woven and it a striking work.

© 2019 Christian Perring

Christian Perring teaches in NYC.