The license of Gothic has its liberties, and countless writers from Walpole to Barthelme have taken them. Some, like Ann Radcliffe or Peacock, used Gothic convention to satirize realism and provide pleasures beyond those enjoyed by the light of common day. Others, like the Brontes or Hawthorne, used the fantastic machinery to explore submerged human impulses and the secrets of a universe not to be revealed by reason.

Mrs. Spark appears to have both traditions in mind. In one respect, her new novel is an agile send-up of different kinds of popular fiction: detective stories, the Jeeves novels, and realistic tales about the servant problem. Read with these parallels in mind, "Not to Disturb" offers fresh laughter and acerbic insight into conventional ways of writing about the hypocrisies of master-servant relationships. Occasionally, the parody extends to other Gothic novels. ... Like several of Mrs. Spark's recent stories, "Not to Disturb" has the cleverness to entertain and the intelligence to provoke thought; but, finally, its philosophical mysteries look suspiciously like pretenses, and the book leaves the annoying as well as the stimulating after-effects of legerdemain.