Delightful murder mystery

The Maid By Nita Prose, HarperCollins, $32.99 .. .. ..

.. .. .. .. Describing a book with murder at its core as “heart warming” must be the ultimate oxymoron.

But heart warming the maid of this title is. She's Molly, who appears so insignificant she melds into the background. A neat freak, she tends to the rooms at the boutique Regency Grand Hotel.

Since the death of the grandmother who raised her, Molly's alone in the world. Her gran was full of the home-spun homilies that Molly lives by. ‘Delightful' is her favourite word.

But things are no longer delightful when she discovers a rich lister “very dead” in the hotel suite she's meticulously cleaned.

Molly's ordered world shifts on its axis. It tilts even further when she's charged with his murder.

It's apparent she's as innocent of the crime as she is about the ways of the world. The bartender who sets her heart a-flutter is not the man she believes him to be. Who were the heavies she riles when she hoovers up the white powder they've lined up on a table? As for Giselle, the dead man's widow who befriends her, how innocent is she? However, Molly is not without real friends inside the Regency Grand. There's Juan Manuel, the Mexican dishwasher, and Mr Preston, the doorman. Conveniently for Molly his daughter's a hot shot criminal lawyer. Who said murder's not a laughing matter?

A movie's in the works. Be it on its makers' heads if they tamper with such a delightful work.

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