If you haven’t read a spooky book for Halloween yet, you’re running out of time! Today’s Book Club Spotlight is a short story collection out of Gothenburg, Sweden that mixes just the right amount of thrills, chills, and murder to get its reader in the mood for the 31st. An Elderly Lady Is Up To No Good by Helene Tursten (trans. Marlaine Delargy) turns the elderly amateur sleuth trope on its head. You won’t find a group of retirees running around solving crimes here. Here, they’re the killers! Author Helene Tursten is known for her successful Nordic Noir books, especially her “Inspector Huss” series, and began writing her deliciously murderous heroine for a Christmas anthology. So if you’re a “scary ghost stories” Christmas enjoyer, consider this a head start!
Eighty-eight-year-old Maud wants very little. She wants to keep her spacious rent-free apartment, travel as she likes, and most importantly, she wants to be left alone. But sometimes, it seems like the world is conspiring against her quiet life. And when that happens, Maud takes matters into her own hands. Whether it means poking a rather rude deli clerk with a safety pin in the buttocks, or dropping an entire chandelier on a would-be apartment thief’s head, she’s always ready with a plan. Because that’s what people get wrong about Maud. She may play up the dithering old lady act around others, but she is as every bit as capable and quick-thinking as any ruthless murderer out there. Just don’t get on her bad side!
“Freedom, no idle chatter, and no problems. Idle chatter and problems were the worst things she could think of.”
– Helene Tursten
This irreverent and darkly funny story collection is a quick read to get your blood spiking this Halloween season. Book Club Groups that don’t mind a little blood and chaos will find this strange book charming and fun. Despite Maud’s penchant for murder, you can’t help but root for her to get her way. Her victims are always people who have wronged her, or were too annoying to deal with in any other manner. It’s cathartic in a macabre way. An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good, is a ridiculous tale of exactly that. Maud is truly up to no good. But can you blame her? That’s what people get for underestimating and trying to take advantage of her. Through the murders and the blood, Tursten is making a bold claim about ageism and especially the social phenomena “Invisible Women Syndrome”. Maud gets away with her crimes, purely because no one can grasp their minds around a fragile old lady committing such cold-blooded murders. Except maybe, some old souls themselves. But who would listen to them?
If you’re interested in requesting An Elderly Lady Is Up To No Good for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 5 copies (A librarian must request items)
Tursten, Helene. An Elderly Lady is Up To No Good. Soho Press, Inc. (2018)
