A Noise Downstairs5 Stars 

Audiobook, Published July 24th 2018 by HarperAudio

Paul Davis is in the wrong place at the wrong time. When he stops to help a colleague on a deserted road, he has not idea that he was there disposing of two female bodies. He is lucky to be alive after being hit on the head with the shovel being used to dig the graves. Several months later he is still struggling with the physical trauma, but also with P.T.S.D. He has memory lapses and fugue states, so is seeing a counselor. He is getting ready to return to work, but thinks writing a book about the incident will help him. His wife gifts him with a vintage Underwood typewriter for his office. He is quite impressed with his gift, that is until he hears typing sounds during the night. In his mentally fragile and somewhat unbalanced condition, he begins to think that this is the typewriter the women had to type their apology notes on and that they are trying to communicate with him.

I really liked the character of Paul. He was an honest and sincere guy who just wants to help others. He wants to return to work, he wants his life back. The secondary characters in this story, his wife, his ex-wife, his son, his best friend, therapist, other patients and co-workers, all seem to be there to flesh out this story, but do not take anyone for granted. There are several twists in this story as I tried to figure out what was really going on. I know that typewriter couldn’t have been possessed, but what was going on? How were these things happening? Is someone trying to drive him mad? So many questions swirling in my head had me on the edge of my seat trying to figure out what was going on and when the finale came …..WOW. I did not figure out what was going on until the very end, just prior to the reveal, but in hindsight, the clues were all there, sprinkled cleverly throughout the story.

I listened to the audiobook narrated by George Newbern. He did an amazing job and I almost felt that the characters were telling me the story. I also love Linwood Barclay. I started reading his books because not only is he Canadian, but comes from Ontario, where I live. I am so glad I did because he has a way with suspense and thrillers. His characters could be me or you, they are simple and ordinary people put into an extraordinary situation. I recommend this book to those who enjoy a suspenseful story that is cleverly written, and if you get a chance to listen to this one, even better. I will definitely be reading more books by Linwood Barclay.

About the Book: The New York Times bestselling author of No Time for Goodbyereturns with a haunting psychological thriller that blends the twists and turns of Gillian Flynn with the driving suspense of Harlan Coben, in which a man is troubled by odd sounds for which there is no rational explanation.

College professor Paul Davis is a normal guy with a normal life. Until, driving along a deserted road late one night, he surprises a murderer disposing of a couple of bodies. That’s when Paul’s “normal” existence is turned upside down. After nearly losing his own life in that encounter, he finds himself battling PTSD, depression, and severe problems at work. His wife, Charlotte, desperate to cheer him up, brings home a vintage typewriter—complete with ink ribbons and heavy round keys—to encourage him to get started on that novel he’s always intended to write.

However, the typewriter itself is a problem. Paul swears it’s possessed and types by itself at night. But only Paul can hear the noise coming from downstairs; Charlotte doesn’t hear a thing. And she worries he’s going off the rails.

Paul believes the typewriter is somehow connected to the murderer he discovered nearly a year ago. The killer had made his victims type apologies to him before ending their lives. Has another sick twist of fate entwined his life with the killer—could this be the same machine? Increasingly tormented but determined to discover the truth and confront his nightmare, Paul begins investigating the deaths himself.

But that may not be the best thing to do. Maybe Paul should just take the typewriter back to where his wife found it. Maybe he should stop asking questions and simply walk away while he can. . .

Linwood BarclayAbout the Author: Linwood Barclay is the #1 internationally bestselling author of seventeen novels for adults, including No Time for Goodbye, Trust Your Eyes and, most recently, A Noise Downstairs. He has also written two novels for children and screenplays.
Three of those seventeen novels comprise the epic Promise Falls trilogy: Broken Promise, Far From True, and The Twenty-Three. His two novels for children – Chase and Escape – star a computer-enhanced dog named Chipper who’s on the run from the evil organization that turned him into a super-pup.

After spending his formative years helping run a cottage resort and trailer park after his father died when he was 16, Barclay got his first newspaper job at the Peterborough Examiner, a small Ontario daily. In 1981, he joined the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest circulation newspaper.
He held such positions as assistant city editor, chief copy editor, news editor, and Life section editor, before becoming the paper’s humour columnist in 1993. He was one of the paper’s most popular columnists before retiring from the position in 2008 to work exclusively on books.

In 2004, he launched his mystery series about an anxiety-ridden, know-it-all, pain-in-the-butt father by the name of Zack Walker. Bad Move, the first book, was followed by three more Zack Walker thrillers: Bad Guys, Lone Wolf, and Stone Rain. (The last two were published in the UK under the titles Bad Luck and Bad News.) His first standalone thriller, No Time for Goodbye, was published in 2007 to critical acclaim and great international success. The book has since been sold around the world and been translated into nearly thirty languages.

Barclay was born in the United States but moved to Canada just before turning four years old when his father, a commercial artist whose illustrations of cars appeared in Life, Look and Saturday Evening Post (before photography took over), accepted a position with an advertising agency north of the border. Barclay, who graduated with an English literature degree from Trent University, in Peterborough, Ontario, was fortunate to have some very fine mentors; in particular, the celebrated Canadian author Margaret Laurence, whom Linwood first met when she served as writer-in-residence at Trent, and Kenneth Millar, who, under the name Ross Macdonald, wrote the acclaimed series of mystery novels featuring detective Lew Archer. It was at Trent that he met Neetha, the woman who would become his wife. They have two grown children, Spencer and Paige.

Website: http://www.linwoodbarclay.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/linwood_barclay