The Maid - Nita Prose - ★★★★.½

AUTHOR: Nita Prose

SERIES: Molly the Maid, #1

GENRE: Mystery-Drama

PUBLICATION DATE: January 4, 2022

RATING: 4.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: An engrossing story with endearing characters. My first true-blue super-duper soul-satisfying read of 2022. Couldn’t keep it aside for a minute!

Plot Preview:

Molly Gray, who works as a maid in a five star boutique hotel, is all alone in the world. With a father she’s never known and a mother who left her, Molly grew up only with her loving Grandma. But now that Grandma is dead, Molly has no one to tell her how to function in social interactions. Because you see, Molly isn’t like a typical person. She struggles with social communication.

The day Molly discover a dead guest in the hotel room she is cleaning is the day her life turns upside down. Somehow, the perfectionist Molly finds herself the key suspect in the murder. And Molly, who lives every single day with her strong sense of discipline and perfection in every task she attempts, has no idea how to get out of this mess. How will Molly “clean” her name as effectively as she once kept her hotel rooms clean?

The story comes to us from the 1st person perspective of Molly herself.

If you need only one reason to read this book, that reason is Molly Gray. What an uncommon yet loveable protagonist! Molly is like a strange combination of Eleanor Oliphant and Monica Geller. The reason for her behaviour is never specified in the book and I appreciated this decision by the author. That way, Molly doesn’t get locked into any pre-defined slots of our mind. Instead, we learn more about her nature as the story progresses. The manner in which her character is sketched makes this journey of discovery an incredible experience. It is amazing how she sees important clues but because of her personality flaw, misinterprets the reason behind them. You, as the reader, need to keep your eyes open because there are many clues thrown offhand in the story but not immediately resolved. This isn’t a casual speed-read kind of book.

Need some more reasons to love Molly?

👉 To make up for her deficiency in reading people, Molly makes life rules from adages uttered by those she respects. Most of these sayings come from her Gran's quotes. One of my favourites (of many) was: “Never mind what others think; it's what you think that matters.”

👉 Molly seems to have a broken moral compass. Those who are good to her are good people and those who are brusque with her are bad people. How she uses this skewed sense and still makes clever decisions is incorporated well in the story.

👉 Molly is the only primary character. But every character other than her is also carved in such a way that you are quite clear about their actual personality. (Or so you think!) Thus the book isn’t about you discovering hidden truths, but about Molly discovering the same. And just as you relax thinking you have figured out everything, Molly throws a couple of surprises your way.

There are other reasons to go for this book too. Its pacing, for instance, is superb. I completed this 300 pager within a day (and that too, a busy, busy day.) Just because there’s a murder mystery and a suspect, don’t think that this is a crime thriller. Far from it. You will know well in advance who the actual culprits might be. The story is about how the police apprehend the guilty and how Molly gets a second chance at her favourite job: cleaning. This book is all about the sketching of the characters and the smartness of the writing (which is as squeaky-clean as Molly herself; no needless floweriness or verbose embellishments like my sentence here. 😂)

This is the author’s debut novel, but except for a fairly frequent use of the phrase “in flagrante”—it comes 5 times in the book; quite surprising for such an uncommon adverb—there is no other place where I could spot any area of improvement for grammar or word usage. The author has multiple years of experience in book editing, and currently works as the vice president and editorial director at Simon & Schuster in Toronto, Canada. Seeing these credentials, I am not at all surprised at the quality of her work.

To quote one of Molly’s pet phrases, this book is a “state of perfection”. It’s a very straightforward story, and yet leaves a strong impact. A “delightful” experience, to borrow yet another favourite word of Molly’s! Do give it a try if you want a narrative that keeps you hooked and characters that make you want to root for them (or whack them hard, depending on the case), and also makes you feel a bit guilty about the state of your house.

One thing is for sure. You're not going to look at the hotel housekeeping staff the same way again.

My thanks to HarperCollins UK and NetGalley for the ARC of “The Maid”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.