A Man Downstairs by Nicole Lundrigan review: An extremely slow-burn thriller
I love thrillers from multiple viewpoints to get a deeper understanding of everything that is going on. A Man Downstairs by Nicole Lundrigan offered that, but it didn’t quite hit the mark. Here’s what I thought of the latest release.
Disclaimer: I got a free, advanced copy of this novel via NetGalley in return for an honest review.
We all have secrets. We all have things that have happened in the past to us. Some of those things aren’t all that dangerous or traumatic. For others, they shape the person that we become in the future.
A Man Downstairs shows us that. We get a story from multiple POVs. At first, the storylines don’t seem to fit together, but eventually, they do, and you start to see the mystery unfold.
This just ended up not being a novel for me. If it wasn’t for reviewing it, I might have DNF’d the book, and it’s rare that I do that.
What is A Man Downstairs by Nicole Lundrigan about?
The novel starts by following Molly Wynters, a trained therapist who is moving back to her small hometown with her son. Her father recently had a stroke and is unable to communicate, but Molly doesn’t want to move in with him.
It turns out that something traumatic happened to Molly in her past. Her mother was killed, and at three years old, she just knew “there was a man downstairs.” That testimony led to a teenager going to prison, but did he actually do it? This is something that she’s lived with all these years, and she just wants the truth.
Lives were ruined on that fateful night, and someone wants revenge. They view Molly as responsible, despite her age at the time, and they are willing to do what it takes to see that justice is served.
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A Man Downstairs review
Overall, the novel was intriguing. I did want to know more, and I did want to figure out who was after Molly. I wanted to learn what had happened all those years ago.
The problem for me was the change in the POVs. I know sometimes changing the POVs can work, but they didn’t for me this time. They led to be completely forgetting where I had been with Molly, and it’s never a good thing to forget where you are with the main protagonist’s story.
I didn’t feel like there was enough time to really get to know Molly before the change in the POV. It meant that I stopped caring too quickly, and I felt that some of the book dragged at the beginning. This was the point where I nearly DNF’d the book.
One of the POVs was Molly’s father. We got a chance to understand who Gil was before his stroke, and we got a chance to see Gil and Edie’s relationship before Molly came into it. As usual, it’s one of those cases where nothing is quite as peaceful and happy as it’s made to seem later, and that’s where one of the mysteries is.
Once I got into it and the pace picked up, it was a good ride. It was just too much of a slow-burn for me. I think with a second read, it would be more interesting as the details at the start would mean a little more.
Rating: 3 out of 5
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