NZLisaM's Reviews > A Noise Downstairs

Paul Davis and the Case of the Haunted Typewriter!

It’s been eight months since Paul was attacked, and left for dead, after inadvertently stumbling across a fellow professor attempting to dispose of two bodies. Plagued by recurring nightmares, and lapses in memory, as well as struggling to process how a person who’d been both mentor and friend to him could murder two women, Paul decides to write down everything relating to the murders, both to try and come to terms with it all, and facilitate his own recovery.

He uses an old manual typewriter (if you don’t know what that is, don’t worry Paul will explain it to you, along with his son), that his wife found at a yard sale, and almost immediately spooky things start to happen. First, Paul thinks he hears the typewriter keys tapping away at night on their own, and pretty soon he’s finding typed messages that appear to be written by the two dead women. Is he going crazy? Is someone trying to make him look like he’s crazy? Or, is he actually receiving communication from beyond the grave?

An enjoyable, entertaining read, that had me zipping through the pages, even though it bothered me that the person behind everything seemed really obvious, suspicious, and unlikeable from page one. I prayed I had it wrong – kept thinking that there must be more to it, and I am happy to report that – yes, yes, yes – there is. So, if you find yourself in the same camp as me, and you think you’ve guessed correctly, don’t panic, that’s only the beginning. In fact, I don’t think the author ever intended that bit to be a twist. Of course, if you don’t guess who, consider it a bonus! The last third of the book, sees surprise after surprise after surprise thrown at you. I mark it at 4.5, as it did drag in places, but that last 30% was mind-blowing, so I implore you to stick with it.

I got a kick out of the descriptions of the typewriter, how it worked, etc, because even though I’m old enough to not only remember one, but also first learned to type on one, I had almost forgotten how it all worked, so that was a nostalgic trip down memory lane for me.

Linwood Barclay, you continue to impress!