An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed by Helene Tursten

First Line: Maud let out a loud sigh of relief as she sank into her comfortable seat on the plane.

 

Things were rather tense in eighty-nine-year-old Maud's Gothenburg apartment after a dead body was found there, and just as she was thinking that everything was back to normal, two police inspectors, Huss and Nyström, knock at her door once more. She evades their questions with ease, but Maud thinks that it's best if she takes a vacation. Someplace warm. Someplace far away.

These six interlocking stories blend Maud's present with some of the problems she's dealt with in the past. And if there's one thing that Maud knows how to deal with quickly and efficiently, it's a problem.

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Part of me wants to be just like Maud. This woman is eighty-nine and still more than able to go on safari. She's got all her marbles. Her health and mobility are good. She's got enough money to live the life that she wants. Good for her! There's just one fly in the ointment: her attitude towards taking a life-- and this is one reason why some people will not see the humor in these stories, and why I call them a guilty pleasure. This is fiction, not real life. In fiction, isn't it nice to be able to do away with a thoroughly nasty human who's causing harm to others? I figure as long as I think a little fictional murder is okay does not stray into the real world, I should be okay.

What's so unsettling is Maud herself. She's irascible, yet once you learn of the life she's had to lead, she's sympathetic, too. You're not supposed to feel sympathetic toward a killer. The humor these stories contain can also keep you off balance. Just the thought of a little old eighty-nine-year-old woman carrying out a murder or two... shouldn't she be sitting in front of the fire with her knitting?

One of the things I found most enjoyable about this latest collection of Maud stories is that Maud gets drawn outside of herself and becomes involved in the lives of others. It's how she plans the next stage of her life that really put the smile on my face. I'm hoping that we might hear from this little old lady at least one more time.

 

An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed by Helene Tursten

Translated from the Swedish by Marlaine Delargy.

eISBN: 9781641291682

Soho Press © 2021

eBook, 272 pages

 

Short Stories

Rating: B+

Source: Net Galley

An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good by Helene Tursten

First Line: The shrill sound of the doorbell sliced through the silence.

Eighty-nine-year-old Maud keeps herself to herself. To the other tenants in the apartment building, they see an old lady who lives in an apartment that's much too big for her, and-- worst of all-- she doesn't pay a penny in rent! What those neighbors don't know would fill an encyclopedia.

Just as Maud entered university at the age of eighteen, her beloved father died. Her mother couldn't cope with the shame of finding out there was no money left, rapidly faded away, and died. Fortunately, a real estate deal was done that gave Maud and her sister their apartment rent-free for as long as they were alive.

For the next few decades, Maud was burdened with the care of an emotionally fragile sister who should've been put in assisted living but refused because, well, that was what Maud was for. Finally, when she was in her sixties, Maud was free to live her life as she chose. Perhaps she should be forgiven for wanting to stay where she'd lived her entire life and for all the traveling she does. Hasn't she paid her dues? (Take that, nosy neighbors!)

All this and more is what you learn as you read Helene Tursten's short story collection, An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good. I've been asked before what my "guilty pleasure" books are, and I've always responded that I never feel guilty about the books that I read. Life's too short and all that. But maybe... just maybe... I should call Maud a guilty pleasure character. In these stories, Maud runs into several folks who take one look at her and think that she's going to be easy to cheat. After all, she's a little old lady who uses a walker to get to the shops. Her mind's got to be going, right? Think again!

In this collection, Maud has to outwit someone trying to take her apartment away from her and someone else who's trying to steal her antiques-- and she's not above a little murder to take care of these people either. It's a pleasure to watch this old lady take care of her youngers and supposedly betters, and lest you get the idea that "it's all about Maud," that's not true. She's also willing to help out others she comes in contact with, although she certainly doesn't seek them out.

When I read one story that was written from an outsider's point of view, I thought to myself, "Why couldn't we get this story from Maud?" The very next story told us the events from her perspective. Tursten read my mind. Tursten also had fun having her two other characters, Detective Inspectors Irene Huss and Embla Nyström test their wits against Maud. An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good is a light, fun read that proves something I've always known: never underestimate the elderly.

An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good by Helene Tursten

eISBN: 9781641290128

Soho Crime © 2018

eBook, 185 pages

Short Stories, Standalone

Rating: B+

Source: Purchased from Amazon.