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Summary
Summary
The New York Times bestselling author of No Time for Goodbye returns 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. . . .
Author Notes
Linwood Barclay was born in the United States, but moved to Canada just before turning four years old. He received a B.A. in English from Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. He worked for the Peterborough Examiner before joining the Toronto Star in 1981. He held such positions as assistant city editor, chief copy editor, news editor, and Life section editor, before becoming the paper's humor columnist in 1993. On June 28, 2008, he wrote his last column announcing his retirement from the Star. He is the author of both fiction and non-fiction works including Last Resort; Bad Move; Bad Guys; Lone Wolf; Stone Rain; No Time for Goodbye; Too Close to Home; Fear the Worst; and Never Look Away.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
College professor Paul Davis, the protagonist of this fast-paced psychological thriller from bestseller Barclay (Parting Shot), has suffered from PTSD since the night his respected colleague and mentor, Kenneth Hoffman, attacked him outside their small town of Milford, Conn. Kenneth, who confessed to the murders of the two women whose bodies were in his car at the time, is now in prison. In order to encourage Paul, whose short-term memory has been spotty since the incident, to start work on a novel he wants to write, his wife brings home an old typewriter. Soon Paul begins hearing noises in the night coming from the typewriter, which happens to be much like the one Kenneth made his victims write their final notes on. Paul's theory that the typewriter might be haunted has his wife and his therapist concerned that he might actually be losing his mind. But is there a more sinister answer? Barclay carefully conceals hidden motives and secret lives until the startling conclusion. Harlan Coben fans will find much to like. Five-city author tour. Agent: Helen Heller, Helen Heller Agency (Canada). (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Several months ago, college lecturer Paul Davis was nearly murdered by a close friend after he caught the friend in the act of disposing of the bodies of two dead women. Now Paul is still struggling to recover from a serious head injury not to mention trying to come to terms with the fact that his friend, now in prison, is a murderer. He's experiencing memory lapses, nightmares, depression, and most troubling the repeated feeling that someone, apparently the ghost of one of the dead women, is trying to communicate with him through an old typewriter. Is there something paranormal going on? Or is Paul being gaslighted? If so, by whom? The imprisoned killer's son or wife? Paul's own wife, or his ex-wife? This could be Barclay's most structurally intricate novel (and he's written a string of very good thrillers, including Trust Your Eyes?, 2012), an engagingly convoluted, thoroughly suspenseful story. Barclay takes a lot of risks here, too there are several points where the story could have fallen apart, where a single too-obvious clue might have pulled readers right out of the action but he does a masterful job of layering on the mysteries until we're almost frantically turning the pages, impatient to find out what the hell is going on. A beautifully executed thriller.--David Pitt Copyright 2018 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
Uncle Heath is raring to take back his marijuana operation from his nephews, Tyler and Cody, who live for high-speed dirt car racing. ("That was it. That was their life") But the old man happens to return home while the boys are out of town, racing in the 19th Annual Possum Trot Special. Thinking he's caught a thief on the deserted family farm, Heath shoots Ordeen Davis, who does odd jobs for Miss Fannie, and tosses his body into the Big Black River. Young Ordeen "was a good boy," Fannie says with feeling. "Good to his momma." So much for Quinn's trouble-free wedding. Atkins, who has even bigger fish to fry, takes on a crooked trucking outfit based in Tupelo that cons drivers into hauling stolen goods. When a big (6foot-6, 260 pounds) trucker named Boom, who left an arm in Iraq, realizes he's been transporting something other than avocados, he gets in touch with his old Army buddy, Quinn. Boom may not take to smuggling, but he loves trucking, especially on routes that traverse Louisiana, a land of lush landscapes and exotic place names like Turtle Bayou, Lake Charles, Breaux Bridge, the Atchafalaya River. If you're a romantic like Boom, just reading these luscious names can make you smell the wisteria, feel the breeze and melt into the scenery. POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT: Linwood Barclay is not known for injecting paranormal elements into his domestic mysteries. That makes A NOISE DOWNSTAIRS (Morrow/HarperCollins, $26.99) something of an artfully crafted anomaly. Or does it? Paul Davis, a nerdy professor at West Haven College in Connecticut, has the bad luck to come across Kenneth Hoffman, a fellow faculty member, trying to dispose of the bodies of two women. Some months later, Hoffman is in prison and Davis is having nightmares and headaches from his close encounter with a murderer. His wife, Charlotte, tries to curb his morbid fancies by bringing home an antique typewriter that proves to be an amusing distraction. Until the machine starts typing notes from the two murdered women. Before he sends Davis around the bend, Barclay places his protagonist in the kind of normal suburban situations we expect from this author - playing squash with a friend, getting breakfast for his son, consulting a shrink. Don't turn your back on any of these guys. HERE'S A TIP: Do not trust the narrator! Worth keeping in mind at all times, this friendly warning is especially applicable when reading the last thing i told you (Morrow/HarperCollins, paper, $15.99), another shape-shifting psychological mystery by Emily Arsenault, a writer who constantly surprises me. Here she fiddles around with the very concept of the narrative voice by splitting the story between two storytellers. Sgt. Henry Peacher speaks from his official perspective as the homicide detective investigating the murder of Dr. Mark Fabian, a psychotherapist whose head was bashed in by someone wielding a heavy bookend. The other, more intimate voice belongs to Nadine Raines, who became a patient of Dr. Fabian's because of "what I did to my social studies teacher." Although we eventually learn what she did to her teacher, we never tire of Nadine's voice, which seems to hover on the near side of madness: "There was something freeing, something rapturous, even, about that moment when my hand came down and broke through his skin." Then again, it's kind of comforting to hear Peacher discussing "Hansel and Gretel" with one of his little girls. COULD OUR PRAYERS be answered? Could Ray Devlin, the tough-guy hero of Wallace Stroby's SOME DIE NAMELESS (Mulholland, $26), be the reincarnation of John D. MacDonald's sorely missed Travis McGee? Sadly, no. Like McGee, Devlin is a beach bum who lives on a vintage wooden boat (the Higher Tide), in "a floating trailer park" in Florida. On occasion, he'll also do special favors for a friend or a client. But unlike McGee, an Army veteran, Stroby's hard-bitten hero was once a soldier of fortune with a more flexible code of ethics. In this redemption tale, Devlin improbably teams up with a female reporter on a floundering newspaper to investigate the real story behind a foreign political coup. The fierce competition for lucrative United States government defense contracts isn't as sexy a plot element as the military coups Devlin once found himself caught up in. But it lends a touch of realism to an otherwise fantastical Big Boys Adventure Story. Marilyn STASIO has covered crime fiction for the Book Review since 1988. Her column appears twice a month.
Library Journal Review
Two murders, one witness, a brutal assault, and a possessed vintage typewriter. -Barclay (No Time for Goodbye) expertly weaves these details into a tantalizing psychological thriller. College professor Paul Davis is trying to help a friend when he stumbles onto the scene of a double murder. Eight months later, still recovering from the injuries inflicted on that fearful night, he wonders if he's gone insane. After all, he doesn't even remember conversations with his wife, Charlotte, who's been much more loving since the accident. When Paul decides to confront his fears by researching the man who brutally attacked him, Charlotte buys him a vintage typewriter to write about his feelings. His therapist Anna White isn't sure Paul's plan is a good idea but supports him anyway. As days pass, Paul's anxiety goes into overdrive. He now hears noises in the night and is convinced the murdered women are trying to contact him. Charlotte is as certain that he's either delusional or blacking out, while Anna doesn't know what to believe. At what point does a person know for sure they've lost their mind? -VERDICT Prepared to be blindsided by an ending you didn't see coming. Barclay's nerve-wracking tale will have readers scared to close their eyes at night. [See Prepub Alert, 1/22/18.]-K.L. Romo, Duncanville, TX © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.