The Maid

Locations
Call Number: Mystery / Prose, Nita, Adult Book / Fiction / Mystery / General / Prose, Nita
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Malletts Creek Branch, Traverwood Branch, Westgate Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 1st Floor 2-week checkout	Express Shelf Mystery / Prose, Nita	2-week checkout	On Shelf
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Mystery / General / Prose, Nita	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Mystery / General / Prose, Nita	4-week checkout	Due 04-20-2024
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Mystery / General / Prose, Nita	4-week checkout	Due 04-14-2024
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Mystery / General / Prose, Nita	4-week checkout	Due 05-05-2024
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Mystery / General / Prose, Nita	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Mystery / General / Prose, Nita	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Mystery / General / Prose, Nita	4-week checkout	Due 04-25-2024
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Mystery / General / Prose, Nita	4-week checkout	On Hold Shelf
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Mystery / General / Prose, Nita	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Mystery / General / Prose, Nita	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Mystery / General / Prose, Nita	4-week checkout	Due 05-04-2024
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Mystery / General / Prose, Nita	4-week checkout	Due 04-27-2024
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Mystery / General / Prose, Nita	4-week checkout	Due 05-10-2024
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Mystery / Prose, Nita	4-week checkout	Due 05-11-2024
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Mystery / Prose, Nita	4-week checkout	Due 05-03-2024
Malletts Adult Books 2-week checkout	Express Shelf Adult Book / Fiction / Mystery / General / Prose, Nita	2-week checkout	Due 04-21-2024
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Mystery / General / Prose, Nita	4-week checkout	Due 04-18-2024
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Mystery / General / Prose, Nita	4-week checkout	Due 04-27-2024
Traverwood Adult Books 2-week checkout	Express Shelf Adult Book / Fiction / Mystery / General / Prose, Nita	2-week checkout	Due 04-27-2024
Westgate Adult Books 2-week checkout	Express Shelf Adult Book / Fiction / Mystery / General / Prose, Nita	2-week checkout	Due 04-27-2024

"A charmingly eccentric hotel maid discovers a guest murdered in his bed, turning her once orderly world upside down--and inspiring a motley crew of unexpected allies to band together to solve the mystery--in this utterly original debut. Molly Dunn is not like everyone else. She struggles with social skills and interprets people literally. Her gran used to interpret the world for her, codifying it into simple rules that Molly could live by. Since Gran died a few months ago, twenty-five-year-old Molly has had to navigate life's complexities all by herself. No matter--she throws herself with gusto into her work as a hotel maid. Her unique character, along with her obsessive love of cleaning and proper etiquette, make her an ideal fit for the job. She delights in donning her crisp uniform each morning, stocking her cart with miniature soaps and bottles, and returning guest rooms at the Regency Grand Hotel to a state of perfection. But Molly's orderly life is turned on its head the day she enters the suite of the infamous and wealthy Charles Black, only to find it in a state of disarray and Mr. Black himself very dead in his bed. Before she knows what's happening, Molly's odd demeanor has the police targeting her as their lead suspect and she finds herself in a web of subtext and nuance she has no idea how to untangle. Fortunately for Molly, a medley of friends she didn't realize she had refuses to let her be charged with murder--but will they be able to discover the real killer before it's too late? A Clue-like, locked-room mystery and a heartwarming journey of the spirit, The Maid explores what it means to be the same as everyone else and yet entirely different--and reveals that all mysteries can be solved through connection to the human heart"-- Provided by publisher.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Library Journal Review
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Excerpt
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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Nice mystery submitted by Bethybeth07 on July 10, 2022, 4:32pm Good plot twists and not entirely predictable

Ok submitted by cldaniels on July 12, 2022, 7:38am A mystery involving a quirky maid who loves her job, memories of her Grandmother's sweet quotes, and array of hotel guests and employees.

Good idea, but needs better execution submitted by zixyxuan on July 25, 2022, 3:39pm Hmm...I have very mixed feelings about this book. There are certain parts that I really enjoyed - mostly Molly's narrative and her comically murderous thoughts about people that have wronged her in life. However, there were many parts of this book that I just felt were lacking. First, the storyline was very simplistic and linear. This means that I saw everything that was coming and really takes away the fun of reading a mystery novel. Second, for an almost-300-page mystery, not much really happened. In fact, I had to really push myself through the first 50 pages of filler because I was just so bored reading it. Lastly, I think the author could've done a better job with Molly's character. It is clear from the narrative that she is on the autism/neurodivergent spectrum because Molly is hyper-focused on hygiene and cleanliness and sometimes fails to pick up on social cues. Instead of mentioning it in the book, the author instead played it off as Molly's "quirkiness" that other people tend to take advantage of or laugh at. This just really rubbed me the wrong way because it always felt like Molly was portrayed as the butt of the joke. Overall, I think the author had a good idea going, but the execution needs to be significantly improved.

Overall rating: 2.25 / 5 Stars

Thoroughly enjoyed submitted by leah karr on August 10, 2022, 9:33pm Molly, the main character is a very interesting narrator. Her unique view of the world and what is right and wrong made for a wonderful read. I didn’t see the ending coming and very much enjoyed the book.

Fun read submitted by jmarie5605 on August 11, 2022, 9:28am A great, unordinary, quirky main character

Clever and Fun submitted by selujules on August 15, 2022, 8:01pm Reminds me of the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. I really liked it! Unique voice and great twists.

Unexpected Ending submitted by cdunlop on March 17, 2023, 12:48pm If a detective fingers a perpetrator just halfway through a crime novel, it's a pretty safe bet that the identification is incorrect. Such is the case in Nita Prose's brisk and entertaining story. Molly Gray, a fastidious maid in an upscale hotel, discovers a dead body in one of the rooms that she is assigned to clean. Due in part to her own social awkwardness and misplaced trust in others, suspicion soon falls on her, so a good portion of the book is dedicated to exonerating her while revealing the actual culprit. Nita Prose unspools the mystery at a leisurely pace, and completes her effort with a surprise ending. She populates her story with an array of characters that range from charming to thoroughly unsavory; the story is built primarily on Gray's interactions with them. One of those characters, the hotel doorman, whose daughter becomes Molly's attorney, is, surprisingly, the one to devise a trap designed to ensnare the guilty party.

Despite Molly Gray's lack of formal education, she is obviously quite intelligent, and her diction is rather refined. Since she narrates the novel, this makes for a pleasant reading experience.

Kept me turning pages submitted by cynthdahlgren on June 12, 2023, 7:34am This book was perfect entertainment for a rainy weekend. It was easy for me to get sucked into the mystery. Molly is clearly innocent, but she manages to get herself deeply involved in some pretty bad stuff! Fun, memorable characters and setting!

Easy Read submitted by jpeshke on July 8, 2023, 2:53pm A light mystery without all the violence or gore. A great summer read!

Entertaining submitted by emroon on July 9, 2023, 10:23am Kept me interested but not the most original whodunit. Was a great beach read that didn’t require much thinking.

Irritating lead character submitted by hiker15 on July 11, 2023, 10:36pm The author writes the lead character as someone who does one thing after another to make herself look guilty. Spoiler alert - - - - turns out that she actually was in the room when the murder took place so she knows who did it. Which begs the question - Why make herself look guilty. Lame book.

Fun book! submitted by traverwood23 on July 11, 2023, 11:13pm Fun read with interesting main character and good twists along the way. An enjoyable mystery!

Pretty good! submitted by maizl on July 23, 2023, 2:21pm The storyline wasn’t as good as I thought it would be (based on its popularity), but it was still a fun read and a very creative main character! I loved the message of the story.

Not worth a read submitted by Gillerdeer on August 20, 2023, 12:21am I agree wholeheartedly with zixyxuan's review. I bought this at an airport on a long journey with high hopes (after all, there isn't much space in airport bookstores, so presumably the books they have should be good?). I had an incredibly hard time getting through the beginning of the book because it was very slow-paced. I kept wondering when the plot was really going to get going. It ended up taking me a few weeks to pick it back up again after partially reading it on the plane.

One main issue I had was that I felt the portrayal of Molly as a character was not executed very well. I do think the author had good intentions, but it didn't land. I think the author wanted us to feel empathy for Molly because she was often the butt of other characters' jokes. But the way the story is framed, it feels more like the author is trying to get us to pity Molly rather than connect with her, which isn't great. And even though Molly is telling the story from her perspective, it feels more like the author is just using the character as an "inventive" plot device. Since Molly reveals the details of her experiences, the reader sees what happened in various scenarios, but because of Molly's "quirkiness" (which is never directly discussed as neurodivergence), she doesn't fully understand everything that's relevant to the plot. It feels a bit like the reader and the author are "in on" a joke that Molly isn't in on, which fuels a lot of the "lighthearted" moments in the book, along with the major plot points -- and that left a bad taste in my mouth. Anyway, it just seemed like the character was not treated fairly in the way she was written, if that makes sense.

As for the plot -- it was not really a mystery. From the cover I was expecting a mystery or a thriller and it didn't seem to be either. From the start, you have an idea of generally what likely happened. It progresses as expected. The end has a twist, but it's one of those twists that you can't solve on your own by following the "mystery," since there aren't any clues given, and it's not a very exciting or interesting reveal. And because the book progresses as expected, it's not a thriller. There are moments with some very quickly resolved tension, but no real suspense. The only positive is that the end does attribute some more agency to Molly, but it didn't really change the overall weird vibes I was getting from the way the author wrote the character.

Anyhow, I'm almost always willing to recommend mysteries because I'm usually pretty satisfied even with silly ones. But I wouldn't recommend this book and would in fact advise people not to waste their time reading it.