Sirens by Joseph Knox @josephknox__ @DoubledayUK

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?

Sirens by Joseph Knox is published in hardback and ebook by Doubleday on 12 January 2017 and is the author's debut novel.


Detective Constable Aiden Waits narrates this powerful, dark and sometimes grimy story in a voice that is assured and really quite frightening. A flawed copper is certainly no new thing in crime fiction but Aiden Waits' character is refreshingly different, and despite anything and everything that he does, the reader cannot fail to empathise with him, to have his back, and to cheer him on.

Set in the depths of Manchester's sinister and quite bleak world of drugs and criminal gangs; Sirens is a study in degeneracy, with an indepth look at the world of the sirens of the title; the girls who live their lives on the edge, keeping the drugs world running smoothly, risking all for the perceived glamour and status that their role brings to them.

It isn't long before Waits finds himself caught up in the middle of some of the most powerful gangs in the city. He's there on official business, but infiltrating these circles is full of danger. He begins to make links between the runaway daughter of a very powerful man and an old case from ten years ago. He knows he has to get Isabelle away, but can he convince her?

Sirens is a dark, dark story and deals with so many serious issues, but it's not cramped, it's perfectly paced. It feels natural, and real and Joseph Knox's writing is so stylish, his words are almost poetic at times.

If you love crime fiction, you will adore Sirens. If you love beautiful writing, you will adore Sirens. If you love gritty realism and dark dark themes, you will adore Sirens.

Sirens is a triumph. Joseph Knox has huge huge talent. A sure fire hit for 2017.


My thanks to the publisher who sent my copy for review.

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.

Find his Author page on Facebook
Follow him on Twitter @josephknox__

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