Grab the Lapels

An Elderly Lady Must Not be Crossed by Helene Tursten

If you’ve ever felt like you’re being ignored because you’ve reached a “certain age,” then you’ll love An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed by Helene Tursten, translated from the original Swedish by Marlaine Delargy. On the other hand, if you’re still under middle age, like me, Tursten’s book is more like reconnaissance for the future, because people who are dumb enough to underestimate the elderly will pay dearly.

You may remember I reviewed the first book about a couple of years ago. An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good introduces us to Maud, who is 88, and owns a large apartment, which she inherited from her father. She’s lived in the same place her whole life, never married, and never had kids. In the first book, readers delight in Maud killing off people she’s not too fond of. My favorite death was a trendy artist who used dildoes as molds that were then filled with cement to make a feminist chandelier. Which, Maud dropped on said artist.

My point is that Tursten doesn’t clean things up because Maud is 88. Maud’s been around a long time, and little shocks her. I know young folks think their grandparents couldn’t possibly know anything about relationships, sex, or work, but if you feel that way, you’re kidding yourself. Should I ever delude myself, I just need to read Bill’s (The Australian Legend) journal posts.

Let me explain the format. Both books are about novella length. The chapters all go together like one story, but really they’re interconnected short stories. You don’t have to read the first book to understand An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed. Basically, book one introduces us to Maud, who has a rather murderous year. It ends with an art dealer dead in her apartment. She set up him up, but the fact that his corpse is in her home is rather distressing. Book two begins with police asking Maud if she remembers anything about the man found dead in her home, so she puts on her doddering old lady act, which includes wiping fake tears and being forgetful and trembly. The scene is short, and from there, the book covers all new material, hence why I say you don’t need to read book one.

To let things cool down, she takes a trip to South Africa, a place she has been before and enjoys. On the long flight, Maud lets memories wash over her, which is how readers learn Maud didn’t just start murdering people when she turned 88. From childhood, she has been cunning enough to set up bullies. If she felt favoritism at work put her in financial straits, she took action. Her sister, a cognitively disabled invalid whom Maud loves and is responsible for, has her own surprise. I love that Tursten used the plane ride to take us back in Maud’s story.

However, once Maud arrived in Africa, I struggled to keep the characters in her tourist group straight. Eventually, I realized that much of the South African plot sets up the reader for the ending, which sends Maud down a different, and unexpected, path.

I listened to the audiobook, read by Ann Richardson. I decided I wanted to listen to both books because the Swedish names and locations are pronounced with care by the narrators, and that mattered to me. For example, Maud’s sister’s name is Charlotte, but it sounds nothing like the English pronunciation.

Overall, if you’ve got a dark sense of humor and like to see someone older get the best of assuming “youngsters,” then you’ll enjoy the Elderly Lady books. Or, if you’re a fan of the Thursday Murder Club series, you’ll notice similarities. Interestingly, all I kept thinking about while listening is how Americans are upset that President Biden is 81. Don’t underestimate the octogenarians.

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Published by Grab the Lapels

I'm a graduate of the MFA fiction writing program at the University of Notre Dame, which inspired me to follow along with trends in teaching, publishing, and reviewing. I also have an MA and BS from Central Michigan University. I used to teach composition, creative writing, and literature in higher education, then did a brief stint at a civic theater, followed by two years at a references desk at a public library. I'm now working toward my ASL Interpreter license.

43 comments

    • I forgot that you read the first one! I was hoping you had, as I felt it would speak to you. You are a mighty Biscuit, and I pity the fool who ignores you. The second book starts right where the first one left off, but you don’t need to re-read the first one. In fact, the opening chapter will remind you of enough to keep going.

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  2. I’ve known too many “Grannies” who take no prisoners to ever underestimate an elderly person. I love how Maud seems to use people’s assumptions and stereotypes of the elderly to her advantage. I am a few years over the line of middle aged at this point and I 100% agree with Biscuit, invisibility can definitely qualify as a super power!

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    • The way people ignore her infuriates me! And the weird thing is being ignore almost feels like overreacting. I’m 38, but I swear people in retail ignore me. I don’t know if it’s my age, gender, size, or what, but I can stand at a counter and have so many employees look at me and keep walking without even saying, “We’ll be with you in a moment.” If I explain what I think is happening, other people will claim it’s in my head, because why would retail employees ignore me. It’s infuriating.

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  3. I think Bill’s blog demonstrates just how little he knows about sex and relationships (he seems to have a passing acquaintance with work).
    I haven’t found that people treat me – a guy – any differently as I age, except that young guys often step in to do my heavy lifting, which I appreciate. I can readily believe though that women become invisible as they get older, past 50 say, these days. My observation though is that they also become much more independent at that age, as they lose the burden of having to be wifely.

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    • That’s an interesting point about women becoming more independent. I wonder if there is some loss of identity as they become more independent. Who are they when they are not caring for others? I’m sure for many women, though, there is a moment of exhilaration at the thought of not caring for others, and it’s been slow to arrive!

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    • When do they lose that, pray, Bill? I haven’t noticed! I mean “wifely” in the broadest sense not in the, hmm, “wifely duties” sense. It women are married, or partnered, the expectation, even from reasonable decent men, is to be “wifely” – to be there, to nurture wounds and slights and worries, in a way (or to a degree) that I don’t think women, in my experience, need as much.

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      • Yes, I wasn’t thinking about ‘wifely duties’. But I do think women seem to pander far less to men once the kids are out of the way. It’s probably just a matter of degree (Milly still feeds me!) but for instance there was a story in today’s Age about women over 50 divorcing and not wishing to remarry.

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        • Thought you meant that Bill – was teasing. I can understand that age article. I have no desire to divorce, but had it happened, or had Mr Gums died, I can’t imagine looking for a new partner. If someone swept me off my feet, who knows, but I wouldn’t be out there dating. I’d be enjoying some independence.

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        • If you look at women in America, there is quite an uptick in women not wanting to marry at all, or divorcing and not wanting to remarry. The dating scene, according to their anecdotes, is a nightmare, and many women have a standard of refusing to date republicans because right now states are abolishing the right to an abortion — and in some places, birth control is possibly up for debate — so women refuse to sleep with men who vote against women’s interests. Even now we’re getting men on podcasts crying about how they can’t get dates but want a woman who will be both traditional wives AND bring in a paycheck. It’s wild times we’re living in. If you Google “reddit women won’t sleep with republicans” you’ll find dozens of threads with hundreds of comments addressing what you’re talking about.

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          • R Redford is awfully wrinkly these days (but then, so am I).
            I do think men, for all the advances that feminism has made, are far more likely to be looked after than to do the looking after.
            Republicans are so far off the planet that I can’t see that Democrats and Republicans could possibly have anything to say to each other. Mind you, the longer Biden keeps handing out weapons willy nilly, the less likely I am to want to speak to Democrats either.

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            • Sir, you forget that wrinkles can be awfully sexy. Typically, it’s a personality that attract the kind of women you want to have fun with, so just remember that, too. We’re not out here looking for 23-year-old soccer players, or whatever, no matter how coiffed their hair is these days. (But seriously, why do soccer players look like they model on the side???).

              I have no clue what is going on politically right now. My brain can’t tease it all out. All I know is I want Ukraine to win and Donald Trump to lose. I also want a law banning those headlights on the monstrous-huge American trucks that are placed so high they shine directly into my rearview mirror. I mean, do these people WANT to kill the rest of us??

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      • All I can think of is the old maxim about a man with a cold is the world’s biggest baby. I don’t know how I feel about that because I’m enough of a germaphobe that when Nick gets sick, I stuff him in his home office with an air mattress and leave treats outside the door.

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  4. I never read An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good, but I do remember it being very popular a few years ago! I’ve been talking about aging with my mum recently. She is now very close (six working days) to retirement, and is having almost the opposite problem to the one you describe – her employers assume that her skill and experience mean she is able to do the job just as she always has, even though it’s a very physically demanding job and she is getting too old for it.

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    • I do see evidence of Biscuit getting worn down, and in the U.S. even when we have jobs with lots of vacation and sick time, we don’t take it because we are made to feel bad when we do. Like, this idea that we are letting everyone down, and when you get back, all that work is piled up and waiting for you. In a way, taking a vacation is a great way to throw yourself under the bus. However, Biscuit is getting better at taking days off here and there to do self-care. I’m proud of her, because it sure sounds like this stuff is challenging to navigate.

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  6. Sounds like it’s about time for me to read both of these. I’ve become mostly invisible at 63. I walk slowly and can’t get out of the way fast, so people actually bump into me.

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  8. I think I’d really enjoy both these books – I remember you reviewing the first one and saying the same thing! It sounds like a more violent version of cozy mysteries, does it seems like all the people who are murdered by her sort of ‘deserve it’ in a way? Obviously no one deserves to be murdered but is this the general gist of it? They are all bad people?

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  9. I do like your final line! My nearly septuagenarian Californian friend agrees with you about Biden’s age. And I love your comment re Bill’s blog righting any misconceptions about age.

    I’m not a Thursday Crime Club reader, but I know some who are, so I’ll keep these in mind for them. I like its concept of a wily, confident old woman, and I do have a dark sense of humour – at least, I like black humour – so I would probably enjoy it but, you know, time.

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  11. I remember thinking this sounded interesting when you reviewed the first one! I don’t know when the age of invisibility starts but I’ve noticed I get hit on by strangers far less than I did in my 20s and to me that seems to be a benefit of being an aging woman!

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    • Karissa, I would love to be hit on more, LOL. Isn’t that terrible?? I am my great-grandma’s granddaughter. She wrote that she envisioned heaven being a pond with a willow tree that she sat under while reading books with men admiring her. I think the invisibility thing also depends on other factors. I feel like people ignore me due to my size AND age. So, I’m 38, but I’m also not thin, so people sort of overlook me. It’s weird. I know Biscuit (age 64) is on a tear about how much she gets ignored now. She’s small but fierce, and she’ll let people know what’s what.

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      • Oh my goodness, that is an amazing view of heaven!!! Hahaha! Just the other day at work I had an unpleasant experience with a 70+ customer and realized I was cutting him slack because of his age but would not have stood for the same behaviour from a 40 year old man. I’ve worked in customer service for so long that I have a lot of experience of men thinking normal friendliness is flirtation. I thought this fellow was a friendly older man until he kept trying to touch my arm. I can be friendly all day at work but you do not get to touch me! In my 20s, living in a city, I would occasionally get yelled at on the street and that hasn’t happened to me in a long time but I also think that’s not something done as much in small towns because we’re all too connected!

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  12. […] Matey Melanie’s review led me to this series of short stories and novellas.  The main character, Maud, is 88 and has a habit of killing those folks she finds problematic.  But who suspects the little old lady?  The author has a lovely post about how she came to write the first novella about Maud due to a forgotten Christmas deadline.  Reading about Maud can make you sympathetic to a murder.  How she gets away with her crimes are lovely even if Maud can be scary in her logics.  I did enjoy the first book a lot more than the second.  Given how much I enjoyed the author’s work, I could see meself giving the Detective Inspector Huss series a whirl. […]

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