The Maid
Nita Prose
385 pages
Published January 4th, 2022
- Ballantine Books
- 🧹🧹🧹
The Maid is a cosy crime novel set in an unspecified North American city (possibly Canadian since that’s where the author is from.) It was one of those first time author sleeper hits that suddenly seemed to pop up everywhere a few years ago, and it is now supposedly being made into a movie starring Florence Pugh. I’d bought the ebook a while ago, but not got round to reading it, then it went round my Book Group and the others recommended it. I enjoyed it, although feel like the plot was ridiculous and that stories about quirky but adorable neurodivergent oddballs have been overdone in recent years.
Molly Gray is a maid who works in a prestigious hotel and lives alone following the death of her beloved grandmother, who raised her after she was abandoned by her mother. She loves her job but is desperately lonely, so when a handsome bartender starts paying her attention, she’s too excited to wonder why. Then she finds a wealthy guest dead in his suite – and Molly becomes the prime suspect!
The writer is an experienced editor (hence the cheeky pseudonym – Neater Prose!) so has constructed a formulaic but appealing story that is clearly designed to be popular, without worrying about details like actual police and legal procedures. Without wanting to spoil the plot, we have a defence lawyer suddenly becoming the prosecutor where her client is the main witness? I don’t think that’s likely.
Molly is a likeable character, although given she’s supposedly smart, she’s painfully naive to a degree that was not believable. This is the start of a series that currently has 2&1/2 more books, but I’m unlikely to bother continuing it.
Other reviewers did enjoy it more than me though (see Cat and Di’s reviews from when it came out) so if you like this kind of cosy crime, give it a go. 3.5 rounded down for the present tense narration.
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