It seems that recently the lists of new releases and bestsellers are filled with stories about mysterious maids. And why do their names always seem to start with “M”? What’s going on?
I blame most of this phenomenon on Freida McFadden and her bestselling Housemaid series of thrillers.
In Book 1, “The Housemaid,” McFadden introduces us to Millie, a complex and desperate character who finds work as a live-in maid. We slowly learn about her not-so-clean background and chew our fingernails as she realizes that she may be in a lot of trouble in that house. Book 2, “The Housemaid’s Secret,” follows Millie later as she works for a rich couple in a posh apartment in New York City. Oh, but things are not as they seem.
The latest book is “The Housemaid Is Watching,” in which we meet Millie years later, after she’s happily married. She and her husband and their two kids have just moved into a nice house on a cul-de-sac. (This time Millie is NOT the maid of the title.) Her family loves their new home, but Millie’s neighbors are strange. One woman is extremely nosy, and another is just obnoxious, flirting shamelessly with Millie’s handsome husband and belittling Millie in front of other people.
Things start to feel off-kilter. Millie hears strange noises in the middle of the night. Her husband seems to be spending too much time with the hands-y neighbor. The maid is caught going through their private papers. Then she discovers she may not be so lucky to have found this house; the price was low because nobody wanted it. Why not? “I wonder if I have made a terrible mistake moving here,” she tells us. But Millie and her husband are no angels. “Truth be told, we have both done some pretty bad things. Unspeakable things.”
The books feature the same central character, but totally dissimilar plots. McFadden uses a structural formula, but you won’t care. You’ll read these quickly, because you can’t put them down. I do have to mention that things may get violent and disturbing; these are thrillers, not cozies. As with all McFadden’s books, there are plenty of twists and a real throw-you-back-in-your-chair shocker. In McFadden’s world, whatever you think you know is likely to change.
Book 3 can stand alone, but Millie’s background is just so juicy, I suggest starting with the first one. The only spoiler here is that Millie survives the events in books one and two, which the reader isn’t sure about while reading them. Will there be a fourth book? McFadden tells us this is Millie’s “last adventure.” But, who knows?
“The Missing Maid” by Holly Hepburn begins a new series, The Baker Street Mysteries. Harry (Harriet) White works as a secretary in a London bank building. After she rebuffs the unwanted advances of her employer, he takes revenge by having her demoted and transferred. Her new assignment is to answer letters sent to … wait for it … Sherlock Holmes. You see, the bank sits on Baker Street, occupying the would-be address (221) of the fictional detective. People who think of him as real send him pleas for help. The mail’s been piling up.
“I’m afraid it’s going to be very dull work,” says her new supervisor. Are you kidding? What a delicious premise! Harry begins typing up replies, informing people that Mr. Holmes has retired to the country to keep bees, and she signs using a made-up name as the secretary or assistant to Sherlock Holmes. But one letter catches her interest. It’s from a young woman who says her sister Mildred has disappeared. Mildred “took a job as a maid at a fancy house in a well-to-do area” that is familiar to Harry and “vanished in mysterious circumstances”; could Holmes help find her? Harry writes back that Holmes has asked her “to investigate on his behalf and share any findings with him.” Of course, this isn’t what the bank wants her to do, so she has to be discreet. It turns out that Mildred has been accused of theft. “Was it possible Mildred was not as innocent as her family wanted to believe?”
As the granddaughter of a baron, Harry is given convenient entrée into society when necessary, and she turns to her old friend Oliver, now a lawyer, for legal help. (Could he be a future romantic interest?) Naturally, she puts herself in dangerous situations.
I enjoyed this book! I can tell this series is going to be fun.
“The Mystery Guest” by Nita Prose is the second Molly the Maid book. It’s almost four years since the events in “The Maid,” and Molly Gray is now 29. She’s been promoted to Head Maid at the Regency Grand Hotel.
After famous author J.D. Grimthorpe drops dead in the middle of his guest appearance at the hotel, the police determine that he was poisoned! Suspicion falls on the young maid Molly’s been training. “It’s the assumption that maids are delinquents, murderers, and thieves: the maid is always to blame,” Molly tells the reader.
Molly has limited social skills, as we learned in the first book, but she’s very smart. She sets out to prove that the young maid, and indeed the hotel, are not to blame in the writer’s death. What makes the mystery unique is that Molly knew Grimthorpe when she was a child. The flashbacks to her childhood are delightfully Dickensian.
This charming book can stand alone, but the first book was wonderful; don’t miss it.
Happy reading!
Mary Louise Ruehr is a books columnist for The Portager. Her One for the Books column previously appeared in the Record-Courier, where she was an editor.