I can’t help wondering if there is an undiagnosed contagion infecting humans right now, spreading a form of insanity. Wars and threatened wars. Global economic turmoil. Formerly (mostly) sane countries now riven with internal divisions. Growing segments of society spurning science and fact-based knowledge in favour of rabid ideology, conspiracy and/or boldfaced lies. An inability to stick to climate change agreements, even as the planet burns. And hatred, so much hatred.

What is going on?

I’d been eagerly awaiting the follow-up to Nita Prose’s 2022 debut novel The Maid: A Novel. If you’ve read The Maid, you know it’s a cracking good mystery centred around a murder at a boutique hotel called the Regency Grand Hotel. But what really drew me in was the main character, Molly Gray, the maid who finds the murdered guest. The Mystery Guest takes place five years after the ending of The Maid. Molly is now the Head Maid at the Regency Grand Hotel. She’s very happy in her new position, until, in Molly’s words, a new “situation” arises: another guest has been murdered. In the well-established tradition of the best whodunnits there are a number of suspects, including, possibly, Molly herself…

From the very first page, I was immersed in the world author Bonnie Garmus created. The tale is funny, sad, maddening, and inspiring, and when I reached the last page I returned to the beginning and re-read the novel a second time.

Newsgathering – the business of journalism – costs money. I do not envy the job of news managers, in public or private news organisations, trying to find a sustainable economic model. That is not, and never will be, an easy task. Sadly however, in my 25 years in journalism, I’ve seen many misguided and harmful attempts to attract more eyeballs, in the hopes of increasing revenues. I made my main character, Marcie Blanchard, a journalist. It’s always good to write about what you know. But mainly, I wanted to make some points – truth via fiction if you will - about how important it is to manage the business of journalism properly, so that journalists can be independent, tenacious, and unafraid in their reporting.