“ Everything will be ok at the end, if it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”

The book begins with a first-person passionate introduction by her. Her name is Molly Maid. She thinks her name is ridiculous.

“I’m as white as the sheets that I take off and put on, take off and put on, all day long in the twenty-plus rooms that I make up for the esteemed guests at the Regency Grand, a five-star boutique hotel..”

She works as a maid at the Regency Grand Hotel. She describes the ambiance, workplace, and its guests and says that she likes most the olfactory sensation of the lobby, I was delighted with the way she described the things around her, in the beginning part of the story. People’s propensity to generate filth never ceases to amaze her.

“ that first redolent breath as I take in the scent of the hotel itself at the start of every shift—the mélange of ladies’ fine perfumes, the dark musk of the leather armchairs, the tangy zing of lemon polish that’s used twice daily on the gleaming marble floors. It is the very scent of animus. It is the fragrance of life itself..”

One day she finds the dead body of one of her regular customers in a room, Mr. Black, and she reports it to the management. She was thoroughly interrogated by the Police to know what she saw in the room. She cooperates and gives all the details. Unfortunately, after some strange shreds of evidence surfaced, she became the prime suspect and got arrested.

This book got the GR Choice award for the best book in the Mystery and thriller genre, and I wanted to read a few latest thrillers, so it jumped into my wagon. The writing of the author is simple and uncluttered. It does not create a hurdle for the reader to slither through in a mystery plot. So I quickly finished the book much faster than my usual pace. My overall experience with the book was just fine and certainly not extraordinary.

In the beginning, there was a bit expository nature of the prose, on the part of Molly describing her in and around. Her self-talk with her dead grandmother throughout the story was showing her deep connection to this relationship. When the courtroom scene began, from there on, the story became a bit more interesting for me. Detective Stark was an imposing female police officer, with broad shoulders, when she entered the plot, I thought through her character I will witness some astute investigative prowess, but I was disappointed, she could not do much. She judged and misjudged too quickly. The part of the story where Juan, Mr. Preston, and her lawyer make a plan to get Molly out of this mess, I felt it a little superficial, although it worked well with the flow of the story.

The story is not bad; it may keep you binding till the end. Characters are few and you do not get confused anywhere. But for me, it lacked structure and accurate execution. Things happened, suspicion is created, question-answer by detectives and accused, some courtroom drama, and other elements were imbibed in the plot yet things moved faster towards the end. The process of shifting culpability was too fast. This fastness was easy to comprehend, but could not do justice to the reader, who reads a thriller to get thrilled. It did not thrill me that well.

The final part was also a bit dolorous for me and it was not executed well in my opinion. The book’s structure towards the conclusion was not liked by me very much. It was as if the author did not realize how to conclude the story and she just wrapped it up. I guess the readers who are more concerned with ‘whodunit’ rather than other minute things might not have this issue as the revelation was an ok and clever one!

The good thing at last, as it should resonate with the quote that has been tucked hanging at the top of this review. The author has cleverly maintained some interesting conversations between the characters and self-talk of Molly with her Gran throughout, which I caught on to after the revelation of the secret, and for that, I will give points to the author

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