The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time meets The Thursday Night Murder Club.
Molly the maid is the perfect scapegoat for a murder. She’s innocent to the world and befriends some bad eggs. But people shouldn’t underestimate Molly. She sees and remembers everything, yet she’s invisible to most. Just a maid.
Nita Prose’s debut novel is a great twist of a story. It has all the quirks of Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. We see the world from Molly’s point of view. “The truth is, I often have trouble with social situations; it’s as though everyone is playing an elaborate game with complex rules they all know, but I’m always playing for the first time.” And it has the fun twists and turns of the best cozy mysteries. Yes there’s a murder, but it’s not a blood and gore, spine-tingling thriller. It’s a mental puzzle. And like Richard Osman’s The Thursday Night Murder Club, Nita Prose has given her readers many splendid characters.
I was on the third floor, cleaning my rooms. Sunshine was cleaning one half of the floor and I was tackling the other. I entered Room 305, which was not on my roster for that shift, but the front desk had told me it was vacant and needed to be cleaned. I didn’t even bother knocking since I’d been told it was empty, but when I pushed through the door with my trolley. I came face-to-face with two very imposing men.
Gran taught me to judge people by their actions rather than by their appearances, so when I looked upon these two behemoths with shaved heads and perplexing facial tattoos, I immediately assumed the best of them rather than the worst. Maybe these guests were a famous rock duo I’d never head of? Or perhaps they were trendy tattoo artists? Or world-renowned wrestlers? Since I prefer antiques to pop culture, how would I know?
Chapter 7, The Maid
“A smart, riveting, and deliciously refreshing debut.” —Lisa Jewell
Find The Maid at your favourite bookstore or learn more at NitaProse.com or the publisher site.