The maid detective returns 2024-07-20 11:38:04

Interview with Iuli Tsakalou

Author Nita Prose is back in full swing with her new book, The Mysterious Visitor, Metaichmio Publications. A socially sensitive mystery series, where its heroine, Molly, who charmed us in her previous novel, The Maid, this time turns weakness and vulnerability into superpowers, as a working-class woman, because she knows firsthand that dirty secrets can’t stay buried forever! The author talks to “ET” for her new story.

Would you like to tell us a few words regarding your latest book entitled ‘The Mysterious Visitor’?

I am so excited that it was published in Greece!

I got the idea while I was on tour in the UK for ‘The Maid’. While visiting a castle museum in Sussex, England, I noticed the most unusual pair of objects in a display case – a mummified rat and an old silver spoon.

The exhibit was a memorial to a young maid who had worked at the castle and who had been accused of stealing a silver spoon from her employers. Despite protesting her innocence, she was fired. Years later, when builders renovated the fort, they found a rat’s nest containing a mummified rat… and the missing silver spoon. What I love regarding this true story is that it is both a parable and a cautionary tale. This little kernel of truth settled into my subconscious and became the thematic setting of “Mysterious Visitor.”

How was the experience of writing another detective story with Molly?

I love being back at Molly, but it has come with challenges. First of all, I never intended these books to be a series, so I had to ask myself how I can offer more, without offering less, to my readers. We’ve all had the experience of reading the next book in a series and it not being as good as the last, so my goal was to avoid that. Once I realized that The Mysterious Visitor was set in two time periods and that we would be meeting Molly at age 10 as she worked alongside her grandmother in a creepy old mansion, I knew I had a new and fresh narrative runway to explore.

Your book series ‘The Maid’ and ‘The Mysterious Visitor’ were well loved. Did you believe in the potential of your idea from the start and how much did the immediate public response affect you?

Readers have embraced Molly in a way I might never have imagined. We’ve well surpassed 2 million copies sold in “The Maid” alone, and readers seem happy to return to Molly. I tried to write a character that resonated with me personally, but as it turns out she’s become more widely known than I ever realized. A lot of it has to do with her struggles to belong, something we all experience at some point in our lives.

In your book, people above suspicion exhibit criminal instincts given the right opportunity. Do you think it is true that we are all potential criminals?

Circumstance certainly has some determining influence on who engages in criminal activity and who does not. In both my books I tried to imagine what would happen if justice were delivered in a completely new way – not always according to the law.

Your series of books deftly merges the excitement of comfortable crime with the depth of social commentary. How does Molly, as a working-class woman, turn vulnerability into strength?

Molly is constantly underestimated. As a hard-working maid in a hotel, no one really notices her. But her superpower is seeing what others overlook, and that makes her an oddly skilled detective because she notices clues that no one else does.

Do you really believe that dirty secrets don’t stay buried forever?

Unfortunately, life and art are two different environments. In real life, powerful people are sometimes able to keep dirty secrets buried, if not forever, for a very long time. All too often, those who cannot afford the cost of injustice are the ones who pay the most for it. This is the idea I explore in both books.

THE NEXT PLANS

If possible, will you give us a little taste of your future plans?

My next novel, ‘The mistletoe mystery’, is published in English in October this year, with translation markets to follow in 2025. After that, I have another ‘Molly the Maid’ novel coming out in 2025, called “The Maid’s Secret” – is both a heist novel and an epic love story that gives us much more insight into Molly, giving her a first-person voice for the first time. I really hope readers enjoy these two new Molly novels.