The Maid

The woman who raised Molly with love. Like Molly, she was an orphan, rejected by her family when she got pregnant with Molly’s mother. Like Molly, she turned her obsession with cleanliness into a blessing. Their daily cleaning chores are a shared ritual of love and family.

Gran plays the role of sheltering mother to Molly, but she is also a mentor, imparting wisdom to the younger generation, then departing to allow the maiden to mature. Gran died before the action of the novel commences, so she does not have a direct role in the story or a character arc. But her presence is felt in Molly’s frequent reminiscences about her grandmother and her attempts to put the lessons she learned into practice.

Gran also serves as a foil to Mr. Black. They are both victims of murder by suffocation, but very different kinds. Gran asks Molly to aid her in death, whereas the first Mrs. Black kills her ex-husband out of anger and resentment, and possibly greed. The novel suggests a similarity, however. Molly and Mrs. Black both believe that the good they hope to achieve justifies acts that would otherwise appear immoral. 

Charles Black’s trophy wife. She’s more of Molly’s world than her husband’s, and they strike up an odd friendship. Giselle has taken a wrong turn in her coming of age. Instead of moving from maiden to adult, she is stuck in the roles of both damsel and vixen—selling herself and waiting to be rescued by one man or another. With the removal of both Mr. Black and Rodney, perhaps Giselle will be forced to become an adult. Her character shows little development throughout the story, and the reader receives no information about her life in the Cayman Islands except that she has enough money to give Molly a sizeable gift. She is a flat character whose main role in the story is as a red herring, drawing suspicion that she and Rodney plotted her husband’s murder.

The doorman of the Regency Grand Hotel, Mr. Preston is an old friend of Molly’s grandmother. He regards Molly with great affection and shows concern for her welfare. When she finally calls on him for help, he employs his daughter Charlotte and descends on the police station to rescue her.

The implication of his friendship with Molly’s grandmother, Flora, is that he may be Molly’s grandfather, although he and Flora must have decided it was better not to acknowledge their history. Mr. Preston is a flat character—kindly and crucial to the plot, but not layered. He serves as a mentor to Molly, and he is the narrative device through which an impoverished maid like Molly can receive expert legal advice from Charlotte.

Hard-nosed and hardheaded, and a good detective, Stark fails to understand Molly. She sees someone a little odd and believes too readily what malicious coworkers say about her. A more sensitive person might have been suspicious of people like Cheryl and Rodney—who say that Molly is capable of murder and drug dealing—and put more faith in the opinions of people like Mr. Preston.

Detective Stark is honest enough to acknowledge that she made a mistake in her judgment and to apologize to Molly. In traditional whodunit stories, the police are often portrayed as bumbling fools who impede the work of an amateur but intellectually superior investigator (such as Sherlock Holmes). The Maid subtly alters this convention. While Stark makes the classic mystery novel mistake of arresting the wrong suspect, the amateur investigator in this case is no investigator at all. Molly knows from the beginning who committed the murder, how, and why. Stark is not a co-investigator but a pawn in Molly’s plan to shield the first Mrs. Black and frame Rodney.

The hotel manager is well-intended but ineffectual. He recognizes and appreciates Molly’s superior performance and loyalty to the hotel but fails to properly support her. He knows there’s something wrong at the hotel, and possibly he even suspects drug dealing, but he doesn’t take action to stop it. He allows Cheryl to steal the other maids’ tips, and he doesn’t stand up for Molly when she is accused of murder.

In terms of Molly’s coming of age, he represents the ineffectual king/father who allows his child to be mistreated because he is either too weak or too naive to intervene. He fails to rule his kingdom well. Yet he is a dynamic character, changed by the events that unfold at his hotel. Molly’s wrongful arrest, and the discovery of the criminality happening under his nose, prompt Mr. Snow to take more responsibility for how the hotel operates and to be more aware of the needs and talents of his employees.

An excellent cook and another loyal employee of the hotel, who has a soft spot for Molly. He appreciates her generosity and her unique charm. He wants to protect her, but Rodney has trapped him in a perilous situation: he has no work visa, and he fears that if he defies Rodney, his family in Mexico will be hurt.

Juan Manuel is the perfect match for Molly. He loves the way she talks; he loves the Olive Garden as much as she does; he understands and appreciates her extreme cleanliness; and he loves taking care of her. Molly found someone who loves the things that make her uniquely herself. He can nurture her generous spirit without taking advantage of her. Juan Manuel serves as the love interest in the novel, although Molly’s unusual personality and Juan Manuel’s precarious immigration status make for an odd romance. They receive a “happily ever after” ending, yet they do not pass through relationship difficulties that usually define love stories and help the characters grow as a couple.

The handsome head barman at the hotel. He’s a thoroughly bad man, but both Molly and Giselle have fallen for his swagger. He is a predator who is the main antagonist in the novel. He exploits Juan Manuel and attempts to frame Molly for the murder of Mr. Black. His motivation for wanting to frame Molly remains unclear, however, since she is (unknowingly) crucial to his drug dealing operation. In this sense, the novel lacks a traditional antagonist. No one except Molly knows what she is trying to do, so no one can actively oppose her. Her greatest obstacle is not Rodney but the criminal justice system that wants to uncover Mr. Black’s murderer while Molly wishes to conceal it. Rodney, along with Mr. Black, represents the climate of greed and manipulation in which Molly and the first Mrs. Black feel justified in committing murder and misleading a court of law. Rodney underestimates Molly and pays for it when she frames him for Mr. Black’s murder.

The head maid is the sort of person who would advance under the weak management of Mr. Snow. She is sneaky, dishonest, and manipulative, and she steals the tips of the other maids. She takes a malicious delight in making Molly look guilty to Detective Stark. Cheryl is a flat, static character who functions as a foil to Molly. Molly’s kindness, efficiency, and ambitions stand out in comparison to Cheryl. While Cheryl has no essential role in the plot, she is part of the context in which the main characters act and evolve.

Charles Black’s first wife: a strong woman, she tells Giselle that she should leave Charles—that she deserves better. Mrs. Black plays the mother/queen, doing the distasteful task necessary to protect her children—including Giselle—by removing the abusive father figure. Moreover, when Molly faints from the shock of finding the body, Mrs. Black remains behind to make sure she is all right, rather than fleeing the scene. In one sense, she is Molly’s double since both she and Molly kill a person by suffocating them with a pillow, and both feel no remorse for their actions. Molly indicates that she feels a kinship with the first Mrs. Black as both feel justified in their Vigilante Justice—taking the law into their own hands. Yet the first Mrs. Black shows greater confidence and worldliness compared to Molly, and of course her transgression is much greater. Molly assisted Gran in committing suicide, whereas the first Mrs. Black murdered her ex-husband.