BookLife Reviews by Carol O'Day: The Maid (Nita Prose, author)
murder mystery, whodunit, London hotel, hotel maids and staff, spectrum disorder protagonist, loneliness, friendship
Place the beloved Eleanor Oliphant in a prestigious hotel as an excellent and diligent maid where she unwittingly becomes involved in a drug ring and murder, and you have the delightful read that is Nita Prose’s The Maid.
Prose’s tale is light, and laced with the humor that ensues when a character embraces her idiosyncracies and forges ahead in spite of them. Molly is a maid in the fictitious Regency Grand Hotel in London. Molly’s mother is absent, a victim of a toxic drug habit, and Molly was raised by her grandmother who was a domestic servant or housekeeper. Gran raised Molly in a home where the two had regular housekeeping rituals; both devoted to cleaning and cleanliness. Molly considers her position as a maid at the Regency Grand to be her dream job.
After her Gran dies, Molly returns to work immediately but suffers from loneliness. She struggles to read facial cues and understand humor, sarcasm and nuance in language. As such she is vulnerable to bad actors. It is not surprising that a handsome bartender takes advantage of Molly and ensnares the unwitting maid in a criminal enterprise he is conducting at the hotel. The enterprise goes awry and a hotel guest ends up dead. Molly is framed. Like any well-crafted mystery, Prose deftly hides clues in plain sight that the reader didn’t know she missed until they resurface later.
The book is lighthearted and the reader does not lose hope that Molly will be vindicated. She is blessed with kind colleagues and friends, some of whom knew and loved her grandmother and who continue to look out for her. Get ready to become attached to Molly Maid; you will alter your hotel tipping practices forever after.