An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good Summary: Maud’s Quiet Spree
TL;DR: A Polite Swedish Pensioner With a Body Count
Maud Flycker is 88 years old, lives alone in a large Gothenburg apartment, and pays no rent.
She also has a habit of removing anyone who disturbs her routine.
An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good by Helene Tursten is a collection of five linked crime stories, translated from Swedish by Marlaine Delargy.
Each one follows Maud as she protects her home, her travels, and her silence with cold practicality.
The hook is simple: society sees a frail old woman with a walker and hearing aids, and Maud lets it see exactly that. Who will enjoy this book: readers of dark humor, short crime fiction, and unconventional antiheroes.
- Five stories, one killer. Maud Flycker, a retired language teacher, eliminates four people across five interconnected tales.
- Age as camouflage. Police, neighbors, and officials consistently underestimate her because of her walker and her years.
- Motive stays constant. Every victim threatens her peace, her apartment, or her plans.
- Ending. Investigators shelve the final case, and Maud keeps her home, her freedom, and her holiday.
- Tone. Dry, understated, and quietly macabre, with coffee breaks between deaths.
Meet the Residents of Vasastan
| Character | Role |
|---|---|
| Maud Flycker (also Adelsiöö) | An 88-year-old retired teacher living rent-free in a large Gothenburg apartment who kills anyone threatening her independence. |
| Jasmin Schimmerhof | A celebrity artist and new neighbor who tries to pressure Maud into swapping apartments. |
| Gustaf Adelsiöö | Maud’s former fiancĂ© who broke off their engagement seventy years earlier after her family lost its fortune. |
| Siv Hansson (Zazza Henrix) | Gustaf’s fiancĂ©e, a former pupil of Maud’s turned glamour model. |
| The Attorney | An upstairs neighbor who regularly beats his wife. |
| The Attorney’s Wife | The battered spouse living above Maud. |
| Wilhelm FrazzĂ©n | An antique dealer and television personality who tries to steal a painting from Maud’s apartment. |
| Richard W. Bergh | A retired journalist and crime novelist living on the top floor who suspects Maud. |
| Mary Bergh | Richard’s wife, a former cartographer. |
| Nils ThorĂ©n | Richard’s 96-year-old friend, a retired detective who studies the murder scene. |
| Irene Huss | A detective inspector investigating the antique dealer’s death. |
| Embla Nyström | A young detective who suspects Maud but is overruled. |
| Tommy Persson | The superintendent who shelves the case, judging Maud too frail to be a suspect. |
| Charlotte Flycker | Maud’s late older sister, whose death thirty-seven years earlier freed Maud to travel. |
An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good Summary
Spoilers ahead. This section recounts the events and the ending of the collection.
Maud Flycker lives in a spacious flat in the Vasastan district of Gothenburg. Her rent-free arrangement dates back seventy years, to a legal agreement made after her father’s bankruptcy.
In “An Elderly Lady Has Accommodation Problems,” a loud celebrity artist named Jasmin Schimmerhof buys the ground-floor unit. Jasmin wants Maud’s larger apartment and begins pressuring her to swap.
Maud visits Jasmin’s studio and looks over the sculptures hanging from the ceiling. She releases the shackle on a piece titled Phallus, Hanging, and a wooden wagon wheel lined with bronze penises crushes Jasmin.
In “An Elderly Lady on Her Travels,” Maud reads a newspaper notice about her former fiancĂ© Gustaf Adelsiöö. He is marrying Siv Hansson, a former pupil of Maud’s who now works as a softcore performer under the name Zazza Henrix.
Maud travels to a luxury spa in Sunne where the couple is staying. Beside a cold plunge pool, she strikes Zazza on the hip with a rubber-spiked walking stick she had taken from a clinic.
Zazza falls, fractures her skull on the pool rim, and drowns. Maud returns home without being questioned.
In “An Elderly Lady Seeks Peace at Christmastime,” Maud listens to the abuse taking place in the flat above hers. A wealthy attorney beats his wife regularly, and the noise and the cruelty wear Maud down.
On Christmas Eve, she unscrews the stairwell light bulb and waits with her late neighbor’s wheeled walker. She rams the attorney at the top of the marble staircase, and he falls to his death.
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“The Antique Dealer’s Death” shifts the focus. Maud is planning a 24-day luxury safari in South Africa and needs money, so she arranges to sell her father’s antique silver collection to Wilhelm FrazzĂ©n, a celebrity dealer from the neighbouring building.
Frazzén arrives, appraises the silver, and then spots a valuable Anders Zorn watercolour on the wall. He attempts to steal it.
Maud hits him on the back of the head with a heavy bronze poker. He falls onto a decorative iron fender that pierces his eye and enters his brain.
She then constructs an elaborate false trail. She uses her father’s old size-41 shoes and a former tenant’s clothing to leave a footprint suggesting a male accomplice.
Maud exits through exterior scaffolding, books a five-day spa stay in Varberg, and returns later to “discover” the decomposing body.
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“An Elderly Lady Is Faced with a Difficult Dilemma” follows the investigation from several angles. Richard W. Bergh, the crime novelist upstairs, works through the evidence with his friend Nils ThorĂ©n and concludes the killer was Maud.
Detective Inspector Embla Nyström reaches the same conclusion. Superintendent Tommy Persson dismisses the idea, citing Maud’s age, her walker, and her hearing aids, and the case is shelved permanently.
By the end of Helene Tursten’s collection, Maud has killed four people and faced no consequence. She keeps her apartment, her routine, and her South African holiday.
Inside the Book
- Genre & Subgenre: Crime fiction; short story collection with dark comedy elements
- Core Narrative Tropes: Senior antihero, deceptive innocence, the perfect crime, vigilante justice, tenant dispute
- Tone & Atmosphere: Satirical, dry, ironic, deceptively cozy, and cold-blooded
- Primary Conflict: Maud’s wish to keep her peaceful, rent-free life against neighbors, opportunists, and police scrutiny
- Pacing Style: Episodic and tightly paced, with methodical preparation, calm execution, and unpunished outcomes
- ISBN: 978-1641290111 (ISBN-10: 1641290110)
- Pages: 184
- Book Structure: Five interconnected stories; the first three follow Maud directly, while the last two shift between Maud, her neighbor Richard, and the investigating police
Books Like An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good
An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed by Helene Tursten — The direct sequel, continuing Maud’s story with further killings and background. Same protagonist, same dry tone.
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman — Elderly residents of a retirement village investigate murders. Shares the senior-cast focus and gentle, ironic humor.
Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn — Four retired female assassins are targeted by their former employer. Like Maud, they turn their age into cover.
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk — An eccentric older woman takes justice into her own hands in a darkly satirical crime narrative.
My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite — A short, understated novel about calculated killings and moral ambiguity, told with dark comedy.
