Review by Robert McCool

Icon Columnist

It's been quite a few weeks since I've submitted a book review for the Icon. It's been quite a few weeks since I have had the motivation to read a new pop-fiction release. I’ve found myself returning to some classics: “East of Eden,” “Travels with Charley,” and even the more recent “Cloud Cuckoo Land.”

So here I am again, but with a new distraction to take up my reading time. I have a shelter dog now. He is two years old and a delight to be around except for walking on a leash or seeing other people who are also out walking their dogs. Then he goes nuts, pulling hard on the leash and almost tripping me. Now he is in weekly obedience classes. He will get better I trust. But it’s hard to read and write with a twenty-five pound dog on your lap. So, that’s the reason you haven’t heard from me in so long. I hope you’ll excuse me.

But back to the review.

Imagine a central character who has a compulsive-obsession complex, plus a personality on the autism spectrum scale. Such is the condition that Molly Gray lives with in The Maid (Penguin-Randomhouse, ISBN 978-0-593-51084-1). Nita Prose writes this person’s life with understanding and compassion, even some big humor. Molly, who is twenty-five, works as a maid for the Regency Grand Hotel, and is delighted best by leaving each of her rooms in a “state of perfection” when she is finished with them. In fact, she works out all her tension and any other bad feelings by cleaning somewhere, usually her apartment which she shared with her grandmother until “gran” died.

Molly has no friends, nor any interest in gaining any except for the bartender of the hotel who she is convinced feels love for her, which she reciprocates in her silent and obsessive manner.

That is, until the day she enters Mr. and Mrs. Black’s rooms and runs into the departing wife, who is named “Giselle,” then finds Mr. Black dead in his bed. She checks his pulse. He’s very dead indeed. She reports the incident to her boss, “Mr. Snow,” and stays in the suite until the authorities show up and she is interviewed by Detective Stark, as she was the first and only person to discover Mr. Black’s condition. It isn’t very long before she stands accused of murder.

She confides to the bartender, Rodney, about her condition, but he has other plans for her that are both nefarious and dangerous for Molly, who is so innocent that she doesn’t comprehend what part she is to play in his unknowable scheme. She doesn’t even understand that Rodney and Giselle are secret lovers.

But Molly eventually finds a true friend in Juan Manuel, a hotel dishwasher with an expired work permit. Between the two of them, they figure out that Rodney, who has his claws in Juan, is running a drug operation in the hotel. They go to Detective Stark with what they know, information that will show Molly’s not the killer, Ah, but then who is the real killer? The twist at the very end will leave you both questioning and satisfied.

I admire this author for her treatment of Molly, who lives in a world of complete innocence during a time turned upside down for her. I admire this book for its story-telling. It is simple, but complex in plot and action.