Book Review: ‘A Noise Downstairs: A Novel’ By Linwood Barclay’

Paul Davis is a college professor who is married for second time and shares custody of his son and lives a normal life on Long Island Sound in Connecticut. One night Paul sees one of his colleagues Kenneth Hoffman driving erratically on a deserted road and follows him. Big mistake on his part. He sees him dump something in an isolated dumpster. Then follows him and sees he stops near the woods. He gets out and asks him if everything is okay. He is trying to get rid of two dead female bodies. He also gets a shovel across his head. Luckily a cop had seen Kenneth’s car with a light out and came upon the scene.

Months later Paul is still suffering from that blow. He has memory lapses and PTSD and depression. He’s seeing a shrink Anna to try and work out his issues. His marriage is also been suffering. His wife is a real estate agent and is often gone a lot. Paul thinks he might want to write a book about what happened to him and also go see Kenneth in jail to try and get closure.

Paul’s wife Charlotte one day brings him home an old typewriter to encourage him to write. Soon Paul thinks he is losing his mind. In the middle of the night he starts hearing the typewriter typing away. He thinks someone is breaking into the house. But there’s no evidence and Charlotte isn’t hearing it. And then mysterious typed pages appear with wording from the two women that Kenneth killed. They think this might be the typewriter involved with Kenneth’s case that was never recovered.

Paul soon thinks he is going crazier than he already thought he was. He digs and digs but is having no luck figuring it out. And then tragedy strikes and we learn what has been going on with Paul and possessed typewriter.

A page-turner of a story with twists and turns you don’t see coming right up to the very end! My first time reading one of author Linwood Barcly’s novel (and he has 17 of them) and I look forward to reading the next one.

You can pick up A Noise Downstairs: A Novel in stores on Tuesday, July 24, from William Morrow.