Nita Prose •
The Maid •

Run, do not walk, to the nearest book by Nita Prose. Prose (no relation to Francine) knows prose.

Molly Gray was raised by a grandmother who helped her interpret a confusing and complex world. After Gran dies, Molly feels adrift without that guiding, sustaining presence. She continues to follow the cleaning rituals they observed together (“Dust we must”), and still calls out, “Gran, I’m home!” though there is no one to hear her in the apartment they once shared.

We’re never told exactly what Molly’s condition is, though it seems likely she has some form of Asperger’s. One thing is certain: She adores her job as a hotel maid at the Regency Grand. There’s nothing Molly likes better than stocking her housekeeping trolley (“a portable sanitation miracle”) with fresh towels and miniature bottles of toiletries, and restoring a room to pristine perfection. She has even committed to memory the rhyming aphorisms used to remind the staff of their duties: “Never leave a mess to be discovered by a guest.”

But someone has left a serious mess for Molly to discover: a dead body in one of the suites she cleans. Dealing with the aftermath taxes her coping skills to the utmost.

Readers will feel instant sympathy with Molly. She is neither a faceless servant nor a clinical case, but an extremely likable human being—loyal, warm, kind, and scrupulously honest. Her personal standards are as high as her professional ones.

And however socially challenged Molly may be, nothing escapes her notice. Despite being set up by drug dealers and wrongly accused of murder, she turns out to be the prosecution’s star witness with her clear, detailed testimony. In the words of hotel manager Mr. Snow, Molly is “one of a kind in all the right ways.”

Gran would be proud.