The Maid by Nita Prose

 

The Maid by Nita Prose

Reviewed by Jeanne

Molly is a maid.  She’s a very good maid, anxious to restore each guest’s room to a state of perfection, and she loves working at the Regency Grand Hotel.  She loves coming in each morning to her crisp maid’s uniform waiting at her locker.  Molly loves cleaning and order. She loves rules, which help her try to understand human behavior.  Nuances are not  her strong suit. Molly’s social skills are rudimentary and she has trouble understanding people. She used to talk to Gran about it, and Gran would help her understand but Gran died a few months ago.

But even Gran might have trouble explaining to Molly about finding a dead body in a hotel room—especially when that body belongs to a wealthy and powerful man.  This means the police are eagerly looking for suspects. And who is a better suspect than a maid?

This had been on my To Be Read list for quite some time and I’m really glad I finally picked it up. Molly is a wonderful character.  She’s very rigid in many ways but she’s also struggling to understand a world that that to her is chaotic and confusing.  She’s very much an innocent even as she feels she is in control. I found myself worrying over her when I know she’s misreading a situation and cheering her on when she stands up for herself. To make it even better, the whole thing is wrapped up in an intriguing mystery with some fascinating twists and turns. It says a lot for how much I cared for this character that I kept skipping ahead to make sure things turned out okay.

Besides Molly, the book is populated with a number of vivid characters. Some are wonderful, like Gran or Mr. Preston, while others are—well, not.  I’m looking at you, Cheryl. Most of all, I liked seeing the world from Molly’s point of view, even as some of her friends and co-workers watch, baffled, by what Molly sees as straightforward.

With as many mysteries as I read, it’s hard to find something that seems fresh, and this one certainly did.  In fact, I was so entranced that I rushed to find and read the sequel, The Mystery Guest, which was just as satisfying.  I’m very much looking forward to the third in the series, a novella entitled The Mistletoe Mystery due out in October.