Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published Date: January 4, 2022
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Rating: ★⍣☆☆☆
REVIEW
I'm going to be honest, the past few years I have not agreed with the winner for this award. Last year it was The Last Thing He Told Me, which I did not like. The year before that it was The Guest List, which was mediocre at best. Needless to say I was a bit skeptical that The Maid would fall into this same trap, but it had such good reviews that I had to pick it up to see for myself. Sadly, I also did not like this book. Once again the Goodreads awards let me down for this genre.
SYNOPSIS
"Molly Gray is not like everyone else. She struggles with social skills and misreads the intentions of others. 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 been navigating 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 upended 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 dead in his bed. Before she knows what's happening, Molly's unusual demeanor has the police targeting her as their lead suspect. She quickly finds herself caught in a web of deception, one she has no idea how to untangle. Fortunately for Molly, friends she never knew she had unite with her in a search for clues to what really happened to Mr. Black—but will they be able to find 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."
MY THOUGHTS
First off, this was NOT a locked room mystery. I would have liked it better if it was. It was also decidedly not "Clue-like" or heartwarming. I have no idea who came up with these descriptions for the book because they are so off it is almost funny.
I must have read an entirely different book than everyone who loved this. How did this win over some of the other books in the mystery/thriller category? It wasn't the plot I disliked, because on on the surface it was entertaining and compelling. However, the treatment of the characters is what tanked this book for me. Although it was never explicitly stated, many readers agree that Molly the maid is on the autism spectrum. I also understand how someone from her background may never have had the resources to be diagnosed. Also, there are some people that aren't good at reading social cues, but that doesn't necessarily make them autistic. Given that, and knowing people in my life that are autistic, this sort of felt like the author googled "signs of autism" and put all of them in this book, without wanting to make the character outright on the autism spectrum. Along with that, her treatment of other minority characters felt incredibly stereotypical at best.
SPOILERS AHEAD HERE:
The ending is what completely ruined it for me. The fact that Molly somehow hid things not only from the cops, but us readers as well is a plot point I hated. For me, half the fun of reading this genre is picking up on the subtle clues, trying to figure it out, and still being surprised by a twist. But when there were zero clues to begin with, it makes the ending feel very rushed and not well thought through. I am still baffled that Prose decided to reveal the actual murderer in the epilogue. And the fact that it turned out to be a character we have never even met was infuriating. It tossed the whole book out the window, and murder that could have been solved in ten pages somehow was prolonged into a 300 page waste of time. Overall this book was definitely not for me.
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