A Noise Downstairs by Linwood Barclay
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Paul Davis forgets things. Why he walked into a room. Who he spoke to, and what they said. What he promised his wife he'd do. Sometimes it's too much, and the panic takes hold.
But he wasn't always like this.
Eight months ago, Paul was attacked - left for dead after seeing something he shouldn't have - and has been piecing his life back together ever since.
During the days, therapy helps. But at night, he hears noises that no one else can. That nobody believes. Sometimes he thinks someone is in the house. Other times, the sounds are far stranger.
Either he's losing his mind - or someone wants him to think he is. Or maybe something even darker is waiting downstairs . . .
One of my favourite psychological thriller writers Linwood Barclay never disappoints.
A cleverly woven tale which slowly builds throughout keeping up the pace as it hurtles the reader to the conclusion. I did guess in part what was going on but then there were twists aplenty before the full story was revealed.
Good characterisation, the story is mainly told through 3 POVs Paul, Charlotte (Pauls current wife), and Anna Pauls psychiatrist. Paul the main character gets caught up in a situation with his college colleague quite by chance one evening when Paul is on his way home he spots his mentor Kenneth's car up ahead of him with its tail light out. Kenneth is driving erratically and Paul thinks he may be drunk. He decides to tail him and then get him to pull over with the intention of driving him home himself. After a confrontation of sorts (sorry no spoilers) Kenneth tries to kill Paul. We then fast forward 8 months after the attack and Paul is suffering PTSD and is visiting a therapist called Anna and Kenneth is now in prison.
Paul is finding it difficult to recover mentally and often can't remember things, jobs he has to do for his wife Charlotte (taking the cleaning to cleaners), often not remembering how he arrives at places, etc. Paul is struggling and things are seemingly getting worse. Having decided to work through his issues by writing about what happened hooping this will rid him of demons, Charlotte his wife brings him a gift of an old typewriter to act as inspiration.
Things take on a bit of a supernatural vibe now as he imagines he hears the typewriter in the night, things escalate and he begins to question his sanity. At this point his life begins to unravel at an alarming rate.
Lots of side plots make it difficult at times to work out what's really happening and although I did guess part of it I never really got the whole picture until the end which is what makes Linwood Barclay for me a great writer.
Thoroughly recommend this thriller - 4.5 stars - rounded up to 5* for Amazon and Goodreads.
Broken Promise by Linwood Barclay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The morning it all started, newspaper reporter David Harwood had plenty to worry about. A single parent with no job, forced to return with his young son to the small town of Promise Falls to live with his parents, the future wasn't looking too rosy. So when his mother asked him to look in on his cousin Marla, who was still not quite right after losing her baby, it was almost a relief to put the disaster his own life had become to one side.
The relief wouldn't last long.
When he gets to Marla's house he's disturbed to find a smear of blood on the front door. He's even more disturbed to find Marla nursing a baby, a baby she claims was delivered to her 'by an angel.' And when, soon after, a woman's body is discovered across town, stabbed to death, with her own baby missing, it looks as if Marla has done something truly terrible.
But while the evidence seems overwhelming, David just can't believe that his cousin is a murderer. In which case, who did kill Rosemary Gaynor? And why did they then take her baby and give it to Marla? With the police convinced they have an open and shut case, it's up to David to find out what really happened, but he soon discovers that the truth could be even more disturbing...
I am a fan of Linwood Barclay and was very pleased to read and review this latest novel - I did not realise it was to form part of a series but once I realised this it made sense that not all of the plots were solved at the end.
Like all of his previous novels he manages to hook the reader from the start - various little mysteries happening as sub plots in the book and the main story interwoven with these makes for a clever novel that keeps the interest going to the end.
Good main characters help this novel move along - the main character David Harwood a journalist (single parent to Ethan aged 9) is forced to move back to his home town with his son and move in with his parents when finds himself out of work. Moving back in with your parents is no easy thing to do and David resolves that this will be just a temporary move until he can find work locally.
When he visits his cousin Marla to deliver some food his mother has asked him to take to her he begins the start of a mystery he just has to solve. Blood on Marla's door and a baby she is caring for that is not her own who she claims was given to her by an angel is just one of the mysteries that he uncovers. Sub plots include a woman found stabbed, 23 dead squirrels and a college campus where several women have been attacked. I liked Detective Duckworth who made a good contrast to David and great sounding board for some of the theories.
Marla, having lost her own baby is in a fragile state and when she is suspected of the murder of Rosemary Gaynor and stealing her baby David becomes involved in trying to find out the truth.
There is a lot going on in this book and I felt I had to go back and re-read some of the novel in places as it was becoming a little confusing but it was still a good read. Plenty of twists and turns as you would expect with this author and given that it is to form a series the fact that some issues were not fully resolved is acceptable. Lots happening to keep the reader interested with good identifiable characters. Another success for Linwood Barclay - gets a well deserved 4 stars from me.
I would like to thank the publisher for sending this in exchange for an honest review.
A Tap on the Window by Linwood Barclay
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
'It’s been two months since private investigator Cal Weaver’s teenage son Scott died in a tragic accident. Ever since, he and his wife have drifted apart, fracturing a once normal life. Cal is mired in grief, a grief he can’t move past. And maybe his grief has clouded his judgment. Because driving home one night, he makes his first big mistake.
A girl drenched in rain taps on his car window and asks for a ride as he sits at a stoplight. Even though he knows a fortysomething man picking up a teenage hitchhiker is a fool, he lets her in. She’s the same age as Scott, and maybe she can help Cal find the dealer who sold his son the drugs that killed him. After a brief stop at a roadside diner, Cal senses that something’s not right with the girl or the situation. But it’s too late. He’s already involved.
Now Cal is drawn into a nightmare of pain and suspicion. Something is horribly wrong in the small town of Griffon in upstate New York. There are too many secrets there, too many lies and cover-ups. And Cal has decided to expose those secrets one by one.
That’s his second big mistake'
This was sent this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
This was the first Linwood Barclay novel I have read, it interested me as it was a thriller and I enjoy these types of books.
The story had me hooked from the start, and as it turned out, I found it very hard to put down at all. Although to novel is long and nearly 500 pages I found I whizzed through the book and wanted more!
So on one rainy night Cal Weaver a private investigator is driving home. He stops at some traffic lights, when he hears a tapping on his window. Cal has made up his mind, it not be a smart move to give a teenage girl a lift in the middle of the night. But when she asks if he is Scott’s dad, he feels he needs to help her and she may know something about his son. Cal’s son, Scott recently died, suspected suicide from taking drugs, Cal wants to find out who sold them to him.
As Cal gives the girl (Claire) a lift, she begins talking to him asks to stop at a fast food place to use the washroom. When she gets there she is a long time in the bathroom, so Cal decides to go and check on her, he doesn’t find her, when he returns to his car he notices the girl sitting in the passenger seat waiting for her ride. Cal suspects something is not right and it turns out the girl now next to him, is not the same girl as he picked up, she doesn’t have wet hair, wet clothes and the cut on her hand is now gone. He decides to confront the girl on this and she asks him to pull over as she wants to get out of the car.
This is a mystery that is puzzling Cal and he finds out the next day from the police that Claire has gone missing, Cal was the last person to have seen her, Cal feels responsible for giving her a lift and takes it upon himself to find her and opens an investigation, he is not working with the police, and they turn on him during the process.
Linwood Barclay has produced an excellent thriller full of suspense. This is a dark novel, where no one is trusted and it seems everyone is hiding something. There are many red herrings dropped throughout the novel, which keeps it fresh and entertaining. As I said previously at 500 pages this is a long novel, however when your reading it you don’t notice this and I still read it in two sittings. This was my first Linwood Barclay book but will certainly not be my last, due to the suspense of the book I have already purchased another of his books and hope I am going to get the same thrill as this.
This is going to be on the best sellers list soon, it has to be! Try it for yourself!
A Tap on the Window – Linwood Barclay is out in October, be sure to grab yourself a copy!
