A Noise Downstairs ★★ Linwood Barclay, Orion, R305

Paul Davis is a literature professor who was hit on the head by Kenneth Hoffman, a colleague who happened to have the bodies of two women in the boot of his car when Paul stopped to offer roadside assistance. Now Kenneth is in jail and Paul is at home recovering from his injury but suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. He decides it might help to write about the event on the typewriter his wife has bought him. Then Paul starts hearing typing in the dead of night.

Barclay dispenses a basketful of red herrings along the way, but mostly of the good kind – the ones that swim close to the solution while still throwing the amateur sleuth off track. Sue de Groot @deGrootS1