The Maid

“The Maid” is an interesting mystery set in the opulent Grand Reagent hotel. Molly, the main character, is a maid who has worked there for years and thinks it’s the most satisfying job in the world. Sadly, Molly has just lost her grandmother, who raised her, and now finds herself alone in the world and desperate for companionship. Unfortunately for Molly, there are some unscrupulous characters at the hotel trying to take advantage of her, and that’s even before she finds the dead body in one of the rooms she’s supposed to clean! I enjoyed Molly and her voice throughout the novel. Even though the book never comes out to say Molly is on the autism spectrum, I inferred very early on that she was. What did bother me was the way she was portrayed and the red flags that I began to see in her character development as told by the author. Some of the things Molly began to say and do just didn’t ring true for me as her story progressed. I eventually got on Goodreads to see what other readers felt and learned some were having the same thoughts as me. It turns out the author, Nita Prose, does not have much experience with people with autism and so was not writing from first-hand experience. Normally that doesn’t trouble me (I enjoyed “American Dirt” even though the author is not Hispanic), but again, there were just red flags in Molly’s character development that stood out to me as not being totally realistic for a person who has autism. It’s hard to explain, but that diminished my liking of the book. “The Maid” did have a good mystery, and I liked Molly as a character, so this was still a worthwhile read for me. I just think this story could have been told better by a different author.