The Devil Upstairs

by Anthony Oneill

[stressedrach]

Cat is starting her new life in Edinburgh after transferring her job from Florida. She buys a flat and everything is just perfect for her, for a few weeks. That is until the neighbour upstairs comes back and he couldn’t be any noisier during the night. No amount of reasoning is working and as her mental and physical health is being pushed to the limit. She starts imagining scenarios on how to bump him off, I mean who wouldn’t when you are at the end of your tether? It doesn’t mean you would actually do it though.
Now you think that this would be plot of the story, but it definitely isn’t, the noisy neighbour is just the tip of the iceberg. He isn’t really the neighbour upstairs that she should have worried about!
I really enjoyed reading this; it is something that kept me captured from the first few pages. I felt that I was in the room with Cat a lot of the time, imagining how I would feel if I were her, the weirdness of the satanic gathering was very eerie and pretty much how I would imagine something like that would be like.
I have to give props to the author for mentioning Irn Bru, as it really wouldn’t be a book set in Scotland without the mention of the drink that almost all Scottish people I know drink!
I think the moral of this book is definitely a “Be Careful What You Wish For” type book, as things may be a bit crappy but it could end up a lot worse.
Anthony O’Neill wrote a compelling book and I look forward to reading more from him.