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rickaevans 's review for:
The Sleepwalker
by Joseph Knox
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
How does Joseph Knox do it? I’m not sure, but THE SLEEPWALKER, his third Aidan Waits novel, continues his streak of brilliance. This is crime writing of the highest order. As well as delivering nail-biting tension and deft characterisation, I think what really sets Knox apart is that he is, sentence-by-sentence, probably the best writer of British noir fiction practising today.
These are not cutesy, village-based murder mysteries. Knox’s Manchester is a city of perpetual night and a veritable hotbed of corruption: from the politicians to the police force, from the gutter to the board room, there is rot and decay. Nothing cosy about the crime either. The murders are almost always grisly, and there are moments in each novel that are genuinely terrifying. Throw in a misfit hero with countless vices, an almost pathological inability to sustain human relationships, and whose greatest enemy might just be himself; and you have the potential for fiction of unrepentant bleakness.
It is due to Knox’s crackling prose that these novels are also hugely entertaining. The spectre of Chandler and Hammett in noir writing can often mean that books of this genre can feel unnecessarily wisecracking, or filled with pastiches of classic American idioms. In the Aidan Waits novels, and particularly with this latest effort, I think Knox hits a naturalistic pitch that is both distinctly Northern and uniquely his own. Indeed, it’s easy, and probably lazy, when critiquing novels to compare writers to their forebears; but I really get the sense that soon we will see Knox described as a key influence on emerging writers.
Some successful authors have a slickness to their writing which can make it appear effortless to the reader, even if the effect of producing it was very hard to achieve. Indeed, I sometimes think it must be much easier to churn out leaden copy than to write convincing fiction with a transparent style that no one notices. Thankfully Knox doesn’t fall into either one of these categories. There is an untamed jaggedness and honesty to his prose which makes me feel that not only is he putting his blood and guts into writing these books, but that it might come at some kind of personal cost. If this is the case, I hope the trade-off is as valuable for the author as it is for us, his hungry readers.
These are not cutesy, village-based murder mysteries. Knox’s Manchester is a city of perpetual night and a veritable hotbed of corruption: from the politicians to the police force, from the gutter to the board room, there is rot and decay. Nothing cosy about the crime either. The murders are almost always grisly, and there are moments in each novel that are genuinely terrifying. Throw in a misfit hero with countless vices, an almost pathological inability to sustain human relationships, and whose greatest enemy might just be himself; and you have the potential for fiction of unrepentant bleakness.
It is due to Knox’s crackling prose that these novels are also hugely entertaining. The spectre of Chandler and Hammett in noir writing can often mean that books of this genre can feel unnecessarily wisecracking, or filled with pastiches of classic American idioms. In the Aidan Waits novels, and particularly with this latest effort, I think Knox hits a naturalistic pitch that is both distinctly Northern and uniquely his own. Indeed, it’s easy, and probably lazy, when critiquing novels to compare writers to their forebears; but I really get the sense that soon we will see Knox described as a key influence on emerging writers.
Some successful authors have a slickness to their writing which can make it appear effortless to the reader, even if the effect of producing it was very hard to achieve. Indeed, I sometimes think it must be much easier to churn out leaden copy than to write convincing fiction with a transparent style that no one notices. Thankfully Knox doesn’t fall into either one of these categories. There is an untamed jaggedness and honesty to his prose which makes me feel that not only is he putting his blood and guts into writing these books, but that it might come at some kind of personal cost. If this is the case, I hope the trade-off is as valuable for the author as it is for us, his hungry readers.