An Elderly Woman is Up to No Good by Helene Turston

 An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good by Helene Tursten is translated from Swedish by Marlaine Delargy.  If you had asked me what "Swedish literature" was like, I wouldn't be able to answer, aside from a few general handwaves in the direction of Nordic noir with Girl with a Dragon Tattoo and the like. So I didn't know what I was getting into when I opened this book.  

Maud is in her eighties. She lives alone rent-free, in a Gothenburg apartment that has been passed down to her.  She lived there with her widowed mother and disabled sister, but now she's all by herself. She spends her time traveling, stealing things that will make her life useful, and being an absolutely outstanding serial killer.

Frankly, this was an amazing book.  It's a collection of short stories about Maud and in each one, she does horrible things and you end up thinking "eh, it's not SO bad" and also pondering how she's able to get away with horrible things by relying on people's stereotypes of older people.  She just makes her voice quiver and pretends to be confused and people write her off as incapable of being a threat.  I think that's what is so special about these stories. Most depictions of older people don't acknowledge that there is a wide variety of types of people who live past the age of 70 - they're not all wise, sweet, old people.  I love the pushback on the stereotype and think Tursten has created a clever character in Maud.

I mean, obviously this book is preposterous. There was a scene in which Maud was climbing out a window that would be impossible for me to do NOW (in my 40s), let alone in my 80s.  But, despite the unbelievability of the premise, this book was a page turner who made me root for a morally questionable character. I leave the last story hoping she lives the rest of her life without going to jail for murder.