Sirens by Joseph Knox #BookReview @TransworldBooks

About this book…

It starts with the girl. How it ends is up to DC Aidan Waits.

Isabelle Rossiter has run away again.

When Aidan Waits, a troubled junior detective, is summoned to her father’s penthouse home – he finds a manipulative man, with powerful friends.

But retracing Isabelle’s steps through a dark, nocturnal world, Waits finds something else. An intelligent seventeen-year-old girl who’s scared to death of something. As he investigates her story, and the unsolved disappearance of a young woman just like her, he realizes Isabelle was right to run away.

Soon Waits is cut loose by his superiors, stalked by an unseen killer and dangerously attracted to the wrong woman. He’s out of his depth and out of time.

How can he save the girl, when he can’t even save himself?

My review…

As soon as I saw the cover of Sirens I knew it was one I had to read, the iconic Manchester skyline dominated by the Beetham Tower which brings back some very happy personal memories for me. Living near Manchester, I’m very familiar with the city but after reading Sirens I think that I may be looking over my shoulder a lot more when I’m up town from now on!

As a huge fan of gritty crime dramas I have felt recently that poor Manchester has lost out to its more popular crime fiction cousins, London, Glasgow and even Liverpool. But Manchester brings it’s dark side to this brilliantly gripping debut novel, laying down a carpet of bleakness on that gloomy urban landscape to give us a cracking crime thriller. Right from the first few foreboding pages I was hooked. Aiden Waits is my kind of antihero-a bad boy detective who doesn’t follow the law himself, he drinks, takes drugs and as for the women…..he certainly isn’t someone I would engage to find my teenage daughter! He definitely has issues that affect his judgement but his sullen, brooding personality masks his intensity to succeed no matter what the cost. I just loved him! I need more Waits in my life!

At the centre of a lot of the action was the Beetham Tower which I felt practically stood out as a character in its own right as it involved itself in the various plot threads. A stark and lonely figure, the skyscraper cuts an unexpected and curious prominence watching over the busy and noisy city like a silent judge (the local folklores surrounding the tower are fascinating reading for anyone interested by the way!)

Joseph Knox has written a wonderfully realistic crime thriller here, gutsy, dark and atmospheric. The short chapters pack a punch, keeping your adrenaline pumping and your emotions high so that you keep telling yourself “just one more chapter” until there are no more left! And that ending-it was just so intensely perfect and shocking that I cried! “Northern noir” has a new star in Joseph Knox (actually, crime fiction in general has a new superstar!) and I will be singing his praises all the way to the top of that tower! Please tell me there will be more of the same coming soon!

Sirens is the best book I have read so far in 2017 so highly recommended by me.

Sirens is published by Transworld Books on 12th January 2017 and is available to purchase from Amazon UK here.

Meet the author…

Joseph Knox was born and raised in and around Stoke and Manchester, where he worked in bars and bookshops before moving to London. He runs, writes and reads compulsively. Sirens is his first novel.

Personal note…

The reason I love the Hilton Tower is that back in 2015 I was told to get myself dressed up as my girls were taking me somewhere special for my 50th birthday treat. I had no idea where we were heading until we drove into Manchester and that iconic building got closer and closer. We went up to Cloud 23 on the 23rd floor where we had cocktails and the most amazing afternoon tea. The views are fantastic, you can see for miles! I can highly recommend it for that special occasion or just to treat yourself. It’s a truly unique experience!

Here I am enjoying my “prohibition-era priced” cocktail at Cloud 23.

My granddaughter admiring the view below us

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