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

Promises to be a classic series

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.

An amazing thriller. Sexy, stylish suspense.

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

A dark and clever debut thriller

Suspenseful, shocking thriller. Deliciously dark

Totally engrossing and I kept on thinking, one more chapter... an intelligent page-turner that makes you question everything

Truly horrifying in the most delicious way. Samantha Downing sucks you in with a great story, pitch-perfect prose and disturbingly dead-on insights into the dark side of human nature. I hope I never meet her in a dark alley....

I couldn't pull myself away from this story - a terrifying and riveting window into the mind of the perfect suburban mother with a taste for murder. Make sure you clear your schedule before you pick it up. Absolutely unputdownable

It's no mean feat to find something fresh in the crowded thriller field, but Downing pulls off an indisputable triumph with My Lovely Wife. Exemplary writing and outstanding pacing confirm Downing's talent, but it's her deliciously depraved characters that kept me flying through the pages. Couldn't get enough of this subversive love-gone-sideways tale!

Deliciously dark and twisted... It's a remarkable achievement, full stop.

Best new books to read this March

A highly original and dark look at the shifting power structure in a modern marriage. . . A funny, smart book

Darkly witty and strangely plausible, it's a read-in-one-sitting firecracker of a thriller, laced with explosive twists

A marital, psychological thriller with darkly comedic undertones

Bold and brilliant

This is a ringer of a yarn, shot through with enough tooth-clenching moments to make you have your dentist on speed dial

With a twisty plot that will leave you gasping, this deliciously dark thriller is on a par with Gone Girl

One of the best thrillers I've ever read

I loved The Chalk Man, but The Taking of Annie Thorne is even better, creepier and more addictive! I was so creeped out I had to stop reading until my husband came home one night! Brilliant stuff - well done, C. J. Tudor!

The Hot List

Following on from C J Tudor's successful debut, comes a novel about bullying, cruelty and deceit. . . Tudor keeps the novel moving at a fast pace

A Stephen King style thriller that will have you transfixed and submerged in the entanglement of the twisting plot. This book kept me intrigued all the way to the very end

Crime meets psychological suspense meets out-and-out horror. From the stomach-churning first chapter to the grand guignol ending that is as shocking as it is surprising, Tudor racks up the nastiness . . . Another hit.

Matches Stephen King for creepiness. A must-read for horror fans

Creepy beyond words. Just like Stephen King, the fact that Tudor's characters are so believable makes the events even creepier