A Noise Downstairs: ARC review

Author: Linwood Barclay
Publisher: William Morrow- imprint of HarperCollins
US Pub Date: July 24, 2018

In Two Sentences:

A couple months after catching his coworker dumping bodies Paul is recovering from the head injury his coworker gave him and decides to write about that night to help. His wife buys him a typewriter for inspiration; then it starts typing itself.

My Thoughts:

I got into Linwood Barclay last summer and have only read the Paradise Falls main series. I kept meaning to read another one by him so I decided to take Reg and Luna along for the ride and buddy read it with them.

One of the things I remembered from his previous books was that I loved his writing style. It did not disappoint. His writing sucks me in within seconds and makes me put everything else aside to just finish the chapter (book). He also writes really short chapters so it just flies by.

I very much enjoyed the mystery behind the deaths and Paul trying to figure everything out. He was actually smart about it too. He didn’t just go and do things. He informed his wife and his therapist when he was about to do something stupid or to check if it was just his head injury making him act that way. I thought it was so well put together.

A Noise Downstairs goes through multiple perspectives and some books do this horribly. This is not one of them. I loved the switch between POVs; I could always tell who was the current viewpoint and I didn’t really have a favorite.

There was one event that happened in the book that I felt had such staged reactions after. It felt so off to me that I just put it down for a bit.

The ending had so many twists and turns. I didn’t see the majority of them coming but by the time I got to the end I was like “are you sure there’s no more twists” because it was just so many. Apparently I do have a limit for enjoying the twists and turns.

Disclaimer: My backlog of ARCs are received from work. This does not impact my views on the books nor am I under obligation to review these books.