Tag Archives: Random House

Tell Me Everything, by Elizabeth Strout*****

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“Lucy said, ‘So what is the point of this story?’

“Olive laughed. She really laughed at that. ‘Lucy Barton, the stories you told me—as far as I could tell—had very little point to them. Okay, okay, maybe they had subtle points to them. I don’t know what the point is to this story!’

“’People,’ Lucy said quietly, leaning back. ‘People and the lives they lead. That’s the point.’

“’Exactly,’ Olive nodded.”

Elizabeth Strout’s fifth entry into her Amgash series, Tell Me Everything, feels like a homecoming of sorts, as she integrates the main characters from all of her earlier novels, or most of them anyway, into a single volume. Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, the Burgess Boys—both of them! It’s a wonderful thing to put them, or some of them, together in the same room for a conversation, or have two of them become friends and take walks together. It’s a lot of fun for her readers, and it was probably a lot of fun to write, too.

My thanks go to Random House and NetGalley for the invitation to read and review. This book is for sale now.

As is true with most books by Strout, the book isn’t—as the quote above suggests—so much about events as it is about the characters that live them. Publicists can call this a murder mystery if they want to, but if you are a new reader and you believe them, you will be disappointed, because the mystery is almost incidental to the story as a whole. The man under suspicion is living his life, and we read about him; the fact that his mother died under suspicious circumstances isn’t nearly as important as the life this poor fellow has been living. Meanwhile, there are a number of other plot threads that are just as important, and most of them have nothing to do with him or his family.

In fact, if I were to draw a theme from this story, it would perhaps be friendship; you might also make a case for fear. For example, Lucy tells Bob Burgess on one of their walks that “none of us are on sturdy soil, we just tell ourselves we are.” And then “when Bob thought about the state of the country these days, he sometimes had the image of a huge tractor trailer rumbling down the highway and the wheels, one by one, falling off.”

This is an easy theme to relate to; much of the polarization of the United States right now has to do with two main ideological camps, and a few smaller ones, being utterly terrified of what will happen next if the wrong people come to power; of course, opinions vary on exactly who the wrong ones are.

Nevertheless, I don’t see that as the main theme. The earliest Amgash books absolutely oozed anxiety. I felt as if I needed to take something before I read them, they were so fearful in their essences. But this story isn’t like that. Here, there’s a sense of acceptance, and also a sense that friendships, and the people inside of those friendships, can help one another.

So despite the mystery thread, this is what Lucy and Olive say that their stories are about: people and their lives.  It follows that those of us that have loved the earlier volumes will love this one even more, because Strout is doing what she does best: she sculpts characters so visceral that I feel I would know them if I passed by them in the grocery store.

Can you read this one as a stand-alone? Well, sure you can. I won’t try to stop you. But your experience will be richer and more satisfying if you treat yourself to some of the earlier stories. Some of them are rough reads, and I myself haven’t read everything this author has written, but if you grab a couple of them at least, particularly the Amgash and Olive books, you’ll appreciate this one more.

Highly recommended to all that cherish outstanding literary fiction.

The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club, by Helen Simonson*****

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Helen Simonson is the author of the bestselling novel, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand. With her new release, The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club, she is once more in her element, creating believable characters and using them to skewer the pervasive racism and class snobbery of Britain, and also, in a smaller way, that of the U.S.  With outstanding word smithery and an unflagging pace, this historical novel should be number one on your summer reading list.

My thanks go to NetGalley and Random House for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

The year is 1919; the place is England. Constance Haverhill has been ousted from her job running an estate; the Great War has ended, and now the women that have been gainfully employed and done a fine job are unceremoniously ejected so that their jobs may go to the men that have returned from the conflict. For the time being, she has a position as a traveling companion to a family friend who’s recuperating at the seashore; once this situation ends, she has no idea where she’ll go or what she’ll do.

Out of nowhere comes Poppy, a daring young woman from a wealthy family. Poppy wears trousers and drives a motorcycle; she befriends Constance and sweeps her into her motorcycle club. Things become even more interesting when Poppy purchases a used biplane to bring home to her brother Harris, a handsome but severely depressed young man who’s lost a leg in the war. At one point he laments, “They look at me as if my brain has gone missing along with the leg. Or rather they refuse to look at me at all.”

Poppy is utterly fearless, challenging local authority and promoting women’s rights. She doesn’t care about the opinions of others; her eye is set on the horizon. And she can do that, because she has a soft nest in which to land. At the same time, Constance is always aware of the stark class division that prevents her from behaving as Poppy does.

“Respectability was the currency in which Constance knew she just trade for the foreseeable future. She…did not have Poppy’s wealth and position from which to defend herself against notoriety.”

There are a number of amusing side characters whose less progressive attitudes contrast with Poppy’s. The two women—also very wealthy—on the adjoining estate sniff at her exploits and declare them to be unladylike. The class division is also highlighted when Constance is offered a position with the hotel where she and Mrs. Fox, the family friend she accompanies, are staying. However, she is told that once she accepts the offer, she can no longer be a guest at the hotel, nor may she use the restaurant, which is a frequent gathering place of Constance’s new friends. No hobnobbing with the clientele will be tolerated; she must use the back door. Constance reflects to herself that wherever she goes, her friend Poppy will use the front door.

Britain’s racist attitudes toward people of color is also featured here, but in a way that does not hijack the plot. There’s an Indian guest of the hotel that is snubbed left and right; at one point, an American visitor attempts to have him excluded from the social events to which he’s been invited. This is resolved in a deeply satisfying manner, as is the issue of taboo friendships formed by Mrs. Fox.

If I could change one thing, it would be to add a bit more nuance. The bad characters are oh so bad; and while the good characters make the occasional mistake, we never doubt their complete goodness. However, this is a minor bone to pick, and overall this is a delightful book.

Highly recommended.

Instrument of Darkness, by Charlie Parker*****

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It’s a funny thing about long running series, how some of them become stale after a time while others just keep building. The Charlie Parker series by John Connolly is one of the latter, and with every addition to it I am more riveted, more amused, and more engaged than I was before. The Instruments of Darkness is the 21st in the series. My thanks go to NetGalley and Atria/Emily Bestler for the review copy; that said, this is one of the rare times that I would have laid out full jacket price if that was the only way I could obtain a copy.

This book is for sale now.

Charlie Parker is a former cop turned private detective with a terrible past. He stepped out to buy a newspaper one morning and returned to find his wife and small daughter savagely butchered; the guilt at not being home to defend them was overwhelming, if irrational. He dedicated himself to finding the person that had done it, and making certain they never did it again. Since then, he’s served as a professional snoop on behalf of other wronged persons. Because he often upsets people with money, power, and twisted morals, he often brings along his own muscle when he works, or in some cases, contracts with them to bodyguard his clients during the process. So it is this time.

The job has to do with a young mother whose baby has been kidnapped from its crib during the night. Colleen woke from the first sound sleep she’d had in forever only to find the nursery window open, and Henry gone from his bed. Later her husband Stephen finds a blanket in the trunk of her car, soaked in blood, which, when analyzed by law enforcement, turns out to be the boy’s blood. Stephen tells the police that he is sure she must have done it, and he leaves her.

But she didn’t. Of course not.

In his last few Charlie Parker novels, Connolly has added touches of horror and magical realism, and it’s only made his stories better. In particular, he is adept at sentient houses or other buildings. Sometimes it really is the structure; at other times there’s some sort of being that lives there, unseen. In this case it’s an old house built from a Sears Roebuck kit over a century ago, and so he names it “Kit No. 174,” and after it appears a time or two in the story, generally as the opening of a new chapter, I get the shivers just seeing the name. The narration tells us, “No one had ever spent long in it—or no one had ever lived in it for long, which is not the same thing. No, not the same thing at all.” There are some minor references to other houses that have appeared in the series, and these will delight the faithful readers that remember them; it did me. However, newbies that are just starting this series will be fine.

The recurring characters shine brightly here. The attorney that often hires Parker, Moxie Castin, opens the book, and we get a resonant character sketch:

“Moxie Castin was easy to underestimate, but only on first impression. He was overweight by the equivalent of a small child, didn’t use one word in public when five others were loitering nearby with nothing better to do, and had a taste for ties reminiscent of the markings of poisonous insects or the nightmares of LSD survivors…He lost cases, but not many, and his friends far outnumbered his enemies.”

Other recurring characters are the Fulci brothers, and when I see their names, I smile. They’re described as “two wrecking balls in human form.” Another is Sabine, a shy, tortured psychic that just wants the dead to go away and leave her alone, and best of all, Angel and Louis, a lawless couple of friends—the word “couple” applies in two different ways here—that Parker hires when things get spicy. If I smile when we are joined by the Fulcis, I beam when I see Angel and Louis. And in a nod to series regulars, there’s a point when Parker simply tells someone, “They’re coming,” and he doesn’t say who, but of course, we know exactly who. (Later he explains them for the uninitiated.) There’s a favorite passage of mine in which Parker is concluding an interview, done in a restaurant, and when he and the other person emerge, she sees them and asks,

“Are they with you?’

“They’re my associates.’

“They don’t look like private detectives. Don’t take this the wrong way, but they look like criminals. If they came into the store, I’d lie down on the floor with my hands behind my head.’

“Sometimes that’s precisely the effect we seek.’”

Oh, there’s so much more, but you need to find these things for yourself. The story is on the gritty side, but not nearly as much so as some of the others in the series. In fact, I generally have a policy of not reading this series at bedtime, lest it enter my dreams. I violated that policy once, and I did indeed have a dreadful night afterward. And so I behaved myself until I hit the last twenty percent, and at that point, I knew I would read it until it was done, regardless of the time or proximity to lights out, because I had to see the resolution. I had guessed, long before, whodunit, but that felt beside the point. So I stayed up and saw it through…and I’m not a bit sorry.

Highly recommended to those that love the genre, and especially to Charlie Parker buffs.

The Morningside, by Tea Obreht****

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In 2019, Tea Obreht blew me away with Inland, a work of historical fiction—alternative history actually—so creative that I haven’t stopped thinking about it to this day. Her new book The Morningside is a dystopian novel that, while not as remarkable as the previous effort, is both intriguing and memorable.

My thanks go to NetGalley and Random House for the invitation to read and review. This book is for sale now.

Our protagonist is Silvia, and she and her mother are refugees from a homeland made dangerous by violent political turmoil. They were invited to live in The Morningside, a once grand old building fallen into disrepair by the flooding that comes with climate change. Silvia’s aunt, who arrives first, and her mother are to be caretakers and participate in the resettlement program.

At eleven, Silvia is full of questions. Her mother never talks about her father or about the past. Her aunt has photographs and stories; her mother is like the librarian that just wants everyone to stop talking. She is consumed by her fears. We readers have to wonder which of them is more realistic. Should the aunt stop blabbing, or should Sil’s mother get a grip? Silvia clearly prefers her aunt’s approach, but then, Sil is just a kid.

There’s a considerable wait list to get into school, so in the meanwhile, Silvia is bored, and bored kids have a tendency to get into trouble. Silvia becomes obsessed with the reclusive artist that lives in the penthouse. Nobody talks to her, because nobody is supposed to bother her. The one obvious thing about this neighbor is that she leaves home at the same time each day with her three dogs.

Silvia becomes convinced that the woman is a sorcerer whose dogs transform into humans—her three sons—for a portion of each day. My initial reaction is the same as her mother’s: don’t be ridiculous, Sil. Leave that poor woman alone. But then it dawns on me that this is fiction, after all, and this is Obreht, so…could the woman have supernatural powers?

Silvia is assisted twice in her spying mission, first by a neighbor that goes by Lam, and that is willing to exchange a pass key to enter the artist’s home for mail that was sent to him after he moved out.  I wonder about this; an eleven year old is approached by an adult man for secret purposes. What could possibly go wrong?

Her other confederate is a girl her own age whose family moves into The Morningside.  How starved Silvia has been for a peer!  Yet this girl is even gutsier than Silvia, and she leads her into dangerous waters more than once.

That’s all I’m going to tell you, except that the story is fresh and original, and although I tend to be skeptical when it comes to this genre, there is never a moment when I find myself stepping back and saying, no way.

With a young protagonist, one might be tempted to say this is for young adults, and that’s possible; yet the vocabulary is advanced enough that the younger reader had better have extraordinary skills in reading and comprehension, not to mention stamina.

I recommend this novel to those that love the genre.

Between Two Trailers, by J. Dana Trent*****

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And you thought your childhood was difficult.

Dana Trent is the child of two drug addicted schizophrenics who met and fell in love on the psych ward. The fact that she lived to adulthood is astonishing. Her story is captivating; my thanks go to NetGalley and Random House for the invitation to read and review. This memoir will be available to the public April 16, 2024.

“’Kids make the best hustlers,’ King told me the week after I was expelled from preschool. He lifted me onto the counter and coated his arms with palmfuls of petroleum jelly from the biggest Vaseline tubs Walmart sold. Then he greased up mine. ‘No one expects a runt in a Looney Tunes T-shirt to shank you,’ he explained. ‘Budgie!’ he said and pointed to my chest, then sealed my street name with a Vaseline cross to my forehead. ‘Budgie,’ I parroted, finger to my own chest…‘Guns are for idiots,’ he added. ‘Here.’ He handed me my first pocketknife, a foldout two-inch blade with a horse and buggy painted on the handle. Knives teach you to accept the inevitable. ‘You’ll get stabbed,’ he said, ‘but you’ll survive. No big deal.’”

The nickname “Budgie” was chosen because she was his lookout on drug deals. She would ride along with him, his trunk stuffed full of drugs, and when he got out, she was stationed on the highest available vantage point. If she saw someone—an ambush, the cops, anyone—she was supposed to sing like a bird. (Even other drug dealers and manufacturers questioned the wisdom of hauling a three year old on such expeditions, but King, as her father was known, was not easily influenced.)

At such moments, one might wonder where her mother was. Usually her mother was either unconscious in bed, or on the way into or out of that state. Because her father was awake and slightly more predictable, Dana considered him the more reliable parent. Before she was old enough for kindergarten, she understood that it was up to her to take care of The Lady.

My initial response to this scenario was to be bitterly angry at whoever decided to expel this child from preschool. Boom, there went that tiny girl’s one tie to the safer, saner world. How could anyone look at her behavior, her clothing, her hair and not call Children’s Services? I’m still fuming.

Miraculously enough, Trent made it to adulthood, and after years and years of therapy, she is able to lead a normal life. She’s achieved a remarkable amount, with a Ph.D. to her credit along with a solid career in academia.

And she can write! There is never a slow moment in this memoir, a hair raising read that I brought out at lunchtime, but never at bedtime. There is very little by way of dialogue, and that makes the swift, steady pacing even more remarkable.

Between Two Trailers is one of the year’s best reads. Highly recommended.

The Hunter, by Tana French*****

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In 2020, Tana French gave us The Searcher, the first in the Cal Hooper detective series. By that time I was already an established fan, but I loved that book particularly well, for reasons I’ll revisit in a moment. Now we have the second in the series, The Hunter, and if anything can reduce this crusty old English teacher to a blushing fan girl, this is it. Two books in, this is already on my short list of favorite series. My thanks go to NetGalley and the Penguin Group for the review copy. This book will be available to the public Tuesday, March 5, 2024.

The series debut introduced the characters, with the protagonist being a retired Chicago cop that found this tiny Irish village on vacation and, needing a new home far from his ex-wife, yet affordable, discovered a bargain fixer of a home and decided to stay. The story’s main problem revolved around a nearly feral tween that kept popping up at Cal’s place. The scrappy little stinker that was relieving Cal of food, occasionally, and doing other unsettling things turned out to be a girl; her name is Teresa, but she’s known as Trey. Her family was in dire straights following the departure of Trey’s father; her brother had left, intending to return, but never had. The mystery was where Trey’s brother had gone, what had become of him, and why. In the interim, she became greatly attached to Cal, who enjoyed her company and taught her some woodworking skills, but also kept a careful distance, lest rumors start and grow.

Now Trey is a bit older, and she is more civilized. She is close to both Cal and Lena, the local woman that Cal has been seeing. But as life settles into a civilized hum, one that would be comfortable had climate change not created a drought that has local farmers at the near end of their wits and their bank accounts, the unexpected happens once again: Johnny Reddy, Trey’s no-account father, has returned. Cal is prepared to step back, if need be, in case Trey wishes to bond with her actual dad rather than himself. Meanwhile, Johnny vows to visit Cal with some local moonshine, and “make a night of it.”

“Trey says nothing. If he does that, she’ll get Cal’s rifle and blow his fucking foot off, and see can he make his way down the mountain to Cal’s after that.”

Johnny never succeeds in bonding with Cal, who doesn’t like the look of him. “Johnny gives him the urge to pat him down and ask him where he’s headed. There are guys like that, who flunk the sniff test just going to the store; it’s a good cop’s job to work out whether they’re actually doing something hinky, or whether it’s just that they will be sooner or later, probably sooner.”

The village is a tiny one, and outsiders are few. Everyone in the vicinity knows that Johnny’s back; everyone wonders what he’s up to. They haven’t long to wait; he’s brought a man with him, one whose family once lived here, or so he says; and the man is interested in seeing if there’s gold on some of the local properties. “He has a rich man’s smile, easy and understated, the smile of a man who isn’t required to put in effort.”  Now the question is whether this “plastic Paddy” is a shyster trying to rip off the locals, or if he is someone that Johnny is seeking to fleece. Meanwhile, Trey has a different agenda, a private one.

The thing that makes this story so much better than your standard mystery is the characterization. If you are in search of a thriller that is all page-turning action, this isn’t your book. However, if you love a layered story with complex, convincing characters, this is for you. I said in my previous review of the first in the series that Trey is what makes an otherwise solid story a golden one, and that’s even truer here. One could even argue that it’s really her series, with Cal existing as scaffolding. Time will tell.

In particular, though, anyone that works with, or has worked with at risk youth cannot, must not miss this story. French has taken hold of my heartstrings hard, and I don’t want her to let go. Highly recommended.

After Annie, by Anna Quindlen*****

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After Annie tells the story of a family that is changed by the sudden death of the mother, a woman still in her thirties. My thanks go to NetGalley and Random House for the invitation to read and review. This book will be available to the public Tuesday, February 27, 2024.

I’ve read a number of books by this author, and I have come to notice a pattern. I read the synopsis, like the sentence I used to begin this review. I see what it’s about and shrug. Doesn’t sound like it would be all that special, but hey, it’s Quindlen, and I have liked her work before, so let’s give it a shot. After all, in past novels, the topics also didn’t seem engaging at the outset. One novel is about a family being forced to relocate due to eminent domain; another has to do with parking spaces in New York City. There’s a memoir about grandparenting, and another about—I kid you not—her dog. Nothing here seems all that appealing.

Yet in some ways, it is the very ordinariness of her subjects that draws us in. So many of us have had to move when we didn’t want to, and so we fought it; or we became so angry with a neighbor’s thoughtlessness that we fantasized about terrible revenge; or we dealt with a death that came out of the blue, striking down someone that was perfectly healthy, or that seemed to be. If we haven’t done any of these things, chances are excellent that someone else we care about has. By tapping into every day experiences and crises of various sizes, Quindlen finds commonalities.

But perhaps the most important feature of her books, particularly her novels, is the way that she crafts characters that are so visceral we would know them if we saw them on the street. Young Ali, the daughter who’s just beginning middle school, yet suddenly finds herself burdened by all of the things her mother did for the family, from child care to meals to housework, is so real to me that I nearly climb inside of her skin, and when Annie’s best buddy tries to tell Bill, Annie’s husband, Ali’s dad, that this isn’t okay and he blows her off, I want to cry out. We can see that he’s behaving selfishly, whether he knows it or not, because he is so poleaxed with grief. It’s hard to prepare a meal when you can’t stop crying. Hell, Bill can hardly go into the kitchen, because that’s where she died.

Grief was like spring, maybe. You thought you were getting out from under it, and then it came roaring back. And getting out from under it felt like forgetting, and forgetting felt like treason.

I began reading this story because I like the author, but it also serves as a grief book. I found this out when my sister died about halfway through. Unlike Annie, my sister was not in the prime of her life, nor was her death unexpected. She’d been horribly ill and in great pain for years on end. Her death was a relief, ending her pain, and ending the anguish of others that had been constantly seeing her that way, helpless to improve her life in any way. So I am not poleaxed like poor Bill. She didn’t leave behind a houseful of small children and a middle schooler trying to pick up all of the pieces. She didn’t have a six year old who would explain to everyone that his mommy wouldn’t be dead anymore once she came home from the hospital. But what I am saying is that I find this book more soothing than I would have guessed. If you or someone near to you is dealing with loss, After Annie may help you too.

Highly recommended.

North Woods, by Daniel Mason*****

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By now the word is out about this genre-bending novel. North Woods, by Daniel Mason, is nothing short of brilliant. My thanks go to NetGalley and Random House for the invitation to read and review; this book is available to the public now.

This book is all about the setting; there are some terrific characters, but don’t get too attached to any of them, because for the most part, they come and then leave. Rather, our story is about a cabin in the woods of upstate New York, and the acreage surrounding it, and how its use changes over the years.

We commence before the American Revolution, and so in the beginning, the narrative has the style of a very old diary, with antiquated spelling and language. This section is the reason I am so dreadfully late reading and reviewing this book. Honestly, the first fifteen percent or so is as dull as watching paint dry. I would begin reading it, but then my eyes would glaze over and I knew I had some other things to read by authors I knew and loved, and so I would switch books. But my Goodreads friends were raving about this book in unusually large numbers. Nobody didn’t like it. And so I summoned my self-discipline and went to it in a determined fashion, fortified by the audio version, which I received from Seattle Bibliocommons. This was very helpful. And once I got past that dry beginning, I began to understand why other readers were raving about it.

The first characters that are noteworthy are twin daughters named Alice and Mary, who are left to run the apple orchards on their own when their father goes off to war. He is a Loyalist, determined to save New England for his king. He doesn’t survive the war, which is just as well, because the locals hate him; he chose the wrong side to fight for. Neither daughter marries, and the property eventually goes to someone else.

The chain of owners is varied and, in many regards, absolutely hilarious. We see one new owner after another explore the house and the grounds, and of course, none of them has a full picture of the previous owner. I love the fact that I know more about this place than its most recent purchaser, and the assumptions that they make range from the merely incorrect to the disastrous. I cannot say too much more, although I particularly enjoy the character of George, whose phlegmatic, unattractive qualities are rendered uproarious in the audio version, and also the medium, a complete charlatan who’s horrified when she inadvertently awakens some actual supernatural beings. I would love to say more, but that would ruin it for you, and that would be a crime because surprise is an important part of the book’s success.

There is a formidable cast of actors that take on the reading for the audio book, and for those readers that are on the fence between audio and print, I recommend the audio version; better still, use both together.

After reading this one clever, memorable book, I will be watching to see what Daniel Mason writes next, because whatever it is, you know it will be good.

Highly recommended to those that enjoy historical fiction, literary fiction, humor, and horror.

I Did It for You, by Amy Engel****

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Amy Engel is the author of The Roanoke Girls and The Familiar Dark, both of which were unrelentingly creepy, and I loved them. When I saw that she had written another, I had to read it. My thanks go to Net Galley and Random House Dutton for the review copy of I Did It for You. This book is for sale now.

Greer Dunning’s sister, Eliza and her boyfriend, Travis, were murdered when they were teenagers. One minute they were making out in his car, and the next, boom. Someone shot them dead, right through the window. The guilty party was eventually caught and charged, and eventually admitted what he’d done, but it never made sense, especially not to Greer. She had a hunch that the killer, an intellectually disabled fellow with little imagination, had not acted alone. But he has said nothing about it, refused to provide a motive, and what he knew, he took with him to the electric chair.

Greer moved on. She finished school, moved from her hometown of Ludlow, Kansas to Chicago, where she works as a middle school counselor. But now a similar crime has occurred back in Ludlow, and Greer feels the pull, the urge to turn toward home and find out for real just what is going on.

This is a solid mystery, though not one with the sort of page turning urgency as the other two. It’s deeply atmospheric, and there’s a melancholy, brooding mood that’s thick and rich, and this is becoming Engel’s signature quality. The internal monologue is an absorbing one.

The choices that she makes while she is home make sense in a strange way, and parallels form in the most unexpected of places.

The solution itself doesn’t work for me. What? No. But the journey we take to get there makes this novel worth reading.

The only problem with writing a big-deal debut novel is that you’ve set the bar high, and readers develop stratospheric expectations for each subsequent book. So it is here. I Did It for You is a decent read, but it isn’t The Roanoke Girls, and it isn’t The Familiar Dark. Instead, it is simply a good book.

For mystery lovers that have never read anything by this author, this book is recommended. For those that have, you may want to get this one free or cheap, rather than paying full cover price.

The Mystery Guest, by Nita Prose****-*****

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“The maid is always to blame.”

4.5 stars, rounded upward.

Author Nita Prose introduced Molly the Maid to us in 2022. Now Molly is back. She’s the head maid now, and considerably more confident than when we first met her. Her boyfriend Juan Manuel has moved in with her, but he is conveniently out of town for most of this novel, and it’s just as well, because there’s another murder about to occur at The Regency Grand Hotel, and once more, Molly will be instrumental in identifying the killer.

My thanks go to Net Galley and Random House Ballantine for the review copy. This book will be available to the public November 28, 2023, so you can plan your gift lists accordingly.

The hotel is in high gear, planning for the big gathering that will introduce the large, new, lovely tearoom. Business has been down at TRG since the murder last year, and this special occasion should bring new life into the hotel. In fact, Molly has given up her vacation with Juan so that she can see to the set-up; everything must be cleaned, shined, and buffed to perfection. You see, famous author J.D. Grimthorpe has an important announcement to make, and he’s chosen the tearoom as the venue from which to do so.

The stage is set, and the fans arrive. Molly’s protégé, Lily, has arranged the tea cart perfectly. Grimthorpe takes the podium, and is presented with his tea. After doctoring it to his own tastes, he takes a sip and ascends the stage once more, but before he can get to the surprise announcement, he keels over dead, right on top of Lily!

Lily is terrified. She’s always been a quiet one, but now she is virtually mute. When the police come in to question her, Lily is nearly undone.

“Molly, I’m afraid.” Her eyes are round pools of trepidation.

“I know,” I say. “But why?”

“Because a famous man is dead. Because they always blame the maid. You of all people should know that.”

“You’re not in any trouble, Lily.”

“Bit soon to tell,” the detective replies.

With that, we’re off and running. The book is one hell of a page turner, and it’s over before I know it. There’s lots of spunky dialog that jumps off the page. I seldom regret putting away my book because I spend so much time reading each day, but for this one, I stayed up late.

My only quibble—a small one—is that a key part of the solution is a bit of a reach. But this is a fun story, and so I make a quick note and move on.

For those that enjoy a sparkling mystery interspersed with wry humor, this book is for you. The profound respect for the working class is icing on the teacake.

Highly recommended.