The Mystery Guest: A Maid Novel

While The Mystery Guest transcends the conventions of a typical “cozy mystery,” the first seven chapters conform to the genre by providing information about the setting, characters, and plot so that readers may unravel the mystery alongside the protagonist as the story unfolds. As the narrative alternates between the Regency Grand Hotel and Molly’s memories of Grimthorpe Manor, both settings and the people they house are laid out like puzzle pieces. Establishing these at the beginning creates a feeling of fair play and trust that the story will be solvable, an essential element of the cozy mystery. While The Mystery Guest is also a novel of self-discovery, this aspect of the plot is secondary to the question of who murdered J.D. Grimthorpe. Thus, all the clues, the setting, and the characters must be present and established at the beginning to allow the logical solving of the crime required by the genre.

One of the things that separates the Molly the Maid series from other cozy mysteries is the protagonist, Molly Gray. Because the protagonist has a unique way of seeing the world, Nita Prose spends considerable time establishing Molly’s voice and emphasizing the wisdom that the protagonist finds in her late grandmother’s aphorisms. As early as Chapter 1, Molly hears Gran’s voice and follows her remembered advice. Because the novel alternates between the present moment and the two characters’ earlier experiences in the Grimthorpe mansion, The Mystery Guest becomes an origin story as well as a crime novel. Thus, the use of Gran’s aphorisms acts as a running motif that weaves the characters through both timelines. Although Gran is no longer with Molly, she nonetheless retains a warm presence in Molly’s thoughts, and the protagonist’s frequent remembrances of her create a more meaningful link between the present storyline and the frequent narrative flashbacks. However, while Molly relies on her memories of Gran to guide her actions, she also exercises her keen sense of observation and unique approach to the world in order to interpret—and sometimes misinterpret—the events around her, thereby injecting a wry note of humor into the narrative. For example, early scenes show Molly in conflict with social situations, such as her inclination for defining and spelling words or her happy obsession with cleaning, and these quirks help to establish her point of view and highlight her outsider status. The first few chapters also establish the fact that she is excellent at spotting clues and fine details even if she does not always interpret them correctly. The first-person narration and descriptions of her earlier years also create awkward situations that are designed to make her character more endearing. By introducing the quirks of Molly’s unique mind and the sayings of the grandmother who still indirectly influences Molly’s actions, Prose balances the more conventional plot devices and crafts a narrative that simultaneously embraces and exceeds the conventions of the cozy mystery genre.

As Molly begins to navigate the complexities of the mystery, she and other marginalized characters must also engage with The Struggle to Belong, and as the primary plotline advances, Molly’s periodic flashbacks to earlier moments of learning, difficulty, or both provide additional insight into her present motivations. For example, Molly’s early trauma from the bullying behavior of her school peers compels her to view other similarly marginalized people with compassion. As an adult in an accomplished position, she takes it upon herself to advocate for characters such as Lily Finch, whose innate shyness and insecurity makes her vulnerable to the accusations of others. Molly’s commitment to this particular cause, while secondary to the novel’s mystery-solving focus, also brings more depth to her character and raises the stakes of the novel. For Molly, solving the murder offers her the chance to stand up for others who are told that they don’t belong, thereby indirectly righting the wrongs of her past.

The early emphasis on cleaning as an unappreciated profession also draws attention to The Value of Unnoticed Work, and Molly aggressively highlights this issue when she declares, “You think my job is lowly, that it’s a position meriting shame not pride. Far be it from me to tell you what to think, but IMHO (meaning: In My Humble Opinion,) you are dead wrong” (6). By starting the novel with Molly’s feelings about the importance of life’s more invisible jobs, the author simultaneously develops Molly’s character and foreshadows the fact that the small domestic details of a maid’s daily duties will play an instrumental role in solving the mystery of Grimthorpe’s murder. Thus, Prose indicates that even the seemingly inconsequential moments of the novel may prove to be of vital performance; by extension, the author suggests that readers should take her characters seriously, even if they occupy positions that are often dismissed as menial or lower-class.

Two major symbols appear in this section of the novel, one of which becomes a major clue. By beginning the novel with Gran’s story of the rat and the silver spoon, Prose provides a primer for the broader mystery. In the Prologue, the rat is the symbolic “villain” for having stolen a silver spoon. By extension, any character who is labeled a “rat” incurs suspicion, and any such character in possession of a spoon is doubly suspicious. This whimsical form of foreshadowing establishes the symbol of the rat early so that whenever a rat or a spoon is mentioned, the narrative draws particular attention to the characters involved. As the story unfolds, the true murderer is pointedly described in these terms, stealing a spoon from the restaurant and having a hotel room described as a “rat’s nest.”