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Up to No Good: The Complete Elderly Lady Stories
Little old lady or stone-cold killer? Maud might just be a little of each. Now, for the first time ever, all eleven Elderly Lady stories—plus a brand-new adventure—come together in this long-anticipated edition featuring bonus recipes and a delightfully dark original cross-stitch pattern.
Up to No Good (soon to be an original series starring Glenn Close) brings together all of Maud’s darkly funny capers from the cult favorite Swedish crime fiction story collections An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good and An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed.
Eighty-eight-year-old Maud has lived long enough to know a little something about the importance of defending her peace. Over the years, she's managed to carve out a comfortable life for herself. She lives rent-free in the same sizable Gothenburg apartment she grew up in thanks to a hastily negotiated clause in a seventy-year-old contract, and she isn't about to move, thank you very much!
Maud knows how to take care of her own, namely: herself. When her way of life is threatened, she springs into action to take care of the Problem. There have been a lot of Problems, and more than a few graves dug as a result. So far, she has managed to evade detection. After all, who would suspect a little old lady of being up to no good? Only . . . suspicions are growing that Maud may not be quite as toothless as she appears. With detectives circling, will her luck finally run out?
Up to No Good (soon to be an original series starring Glenn Close) brings together all of Maud’s darkly funny capers from the cult favorite Swedish crime fiction story collections An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good and An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed.
Eighty-eight-year-old Maud has lived long enough to know a little something about the importance of defending her peace. Over the years, she's managed to carve out a comfortable life for herself. She lives rent-free in the same sizable Gothenburg apartment she grew up in thanks to a hastily negotiated clause in a seventy-year-old contract, and she isn't about to move, thank you very much!
Maud knows how to take care of her own, namely: herself. When her way of life is threatened, she springs into action to take care of the Problem. There have been a lot of Problems, and more than a few graves dug as a result. So far, she has managed to evade detection. After all, who would suspect a little old lady of being up to no good? Only . . . suspicions are growing that Maud may not be quite as toothless as she appears. With detectives circling, will her luck finally run out?
- GenresMystery
352 pages, Hardcover
Published October 6, 2026
About the author
Helene Tursten
63 books1,004 followersHelene Tursten (born in Gothenburg in 1954) is a Swedish writer of crime fiction. The main character in her stories is Detective Inspector Irene Huss. Before becoming an author, Tursten worked as a nurse and then a dentist, but was forced to leave due to illness. During her illness she worked as a translator of medical articles.
Series:
* Irene Huss
Series:
* Irene Huss
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 26, 2026
Lured in by the cover (and the included cross-stitch pattern!) and thoroughly enjoyed Maud’s antics. Murdery old ladies seem to be having a moment (thinking of Too Old For This by Samantha Downing and Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth, off the top of my head), and I’m here for it.
I’m definitely interested in reading more of Tursten’s books — and I can’t wait to watch the show version of this when it’s available in the US!
* recommended to stock in the store & will be handselling to my fellow middle aged ladies in need of some lighthearted murder business
I’m definitely interested in reading more of Tursten’s books — and I can’t wait to watch the show version of this when it’s available in the US!
* recommended to stock in the store & will be handselling to my fellow middle aged ladies in need of some lighthearted murder business
October 10, 2026
I picked this up the minute I saw it because I had already read the first two books, An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good and An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed. The series, so far, had been grisly fun. For certain definitions of fun, that is.
In some ways, Maud is rather enviable. She’s 88, she’s still in excellent health, she’s sharp as a tack (or a knife), she owns her own apartment and lives completely independently. Most of us would like to have Maud’s excellent health when we get to be 88. I certainly would.
Very much on the other hand, one of the reasons that Maud is very careful to maintain her excellent health is that she really can’t afford to have other people living with her or knowing too much about her life. Definitely not her past and not even her present.
Because Maud has a tendency to eliminate the people and problems that get in her way. Permanently. But also quite cleverly. She exploits her persona as a frail-seeming, dotty old woman to literally get away with murder.
(Carol, the retired/reformed serial killer in I’m Not the Only Murderer in My Retirement Home, could stand to learn a few lessons from Maud about covering up her crimes and keeping her secrets. Because Maud is a professional at it, while Carol seems to be a talented amateur. After all, Carol got caught and Maud never has.)
Through the first two books in this series, we’ve experienced the scope of Maud’s rather long career of being “up to no good” – which she is very, very good at. What I did not realize until I got into this latest book is that there’s only one new story – I hoped there’d be a few more new stories -while the rest of Maud’s murderous saga was included in those previous books.
So, if you’re curious about ALL of Maud’s exploits – or if you enjoyed I’m Not the Only Murderer in My Retirement Home and want to read about someone who really, truly got it right – for selected definitions of right – you’ll want to start at the beginning with An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good – because Maud is very good at it.
Escape Rating A-: If you’ve read Maud’s entire saga, the new story in this book, “An Elderly Lady Encounters an Unpleasant Problem”, provides an appropriately murderous ending to the entire saga. Not because Maud dies at the end – she absolutely does not. But because someone who has gotten in Maud’s way dies instead. At Maud’s hands. Naturally – at least in Maud’s world.
It’s the final story in the series because Maud has decided to leave her native Gothenburg (Sweden) and is moving to South Africa. Because Cape Town is warm and sunny and Gothenburg is the opposite even in the summer. Whether or not she’s really going to turn over a new leaf is anyone’s guess. Personally, I doubt it, but we’ll probably never know.
But before she leaves, she has one final problem to solve – and she’s a bit less spry and a bit more personally involved in this particular problem than she prefers. But her planning is every single bit as thorough and meticulous as it has always been. Which is precisely what we follow Maud’s exploits FOR. It’s never about blood and gore. It’s about making the murder look so very ordinary that no one could possibly see it as murder. Not even the police – ESPECIALLY not the police.
Just a couple of weeks before her flight to Cape Town, she falls and sprains her ankle. The melting ice that caused her fall is emblematic of why she decided to leave Gothenburg in the first place.
But while as she’s laid up – as much as she allows herself to be while she’s healing – her peace is invaded by someone she didn’t know existed. She knows this strange woman wants something from her – because in Maud’s view everyone wants something. This time she’s right.
The woman claims to have proof that she’s Maud’s half-sister. Not just because their father was a cheating louse – although he was – but documents from her mother and an uncanny resemblance to Maud’s late sister Charlotte.
Yvonne wants Maud’s apartment in Gothenburg, which Maud owns free and clear AND pays no rent on because the owners tried to cheat her and she took them to court and won. Yvonne also has proof that their father was even more of a bastard than Maud already knew he was. Even so many years after his death – in his mistress’s bed – Maud can’t allow that proof to be revealed.
But the story proves that there’s more to nature than nurture in Maud’s career of permanently removing the obstacles in her life. This time around, she only manages to get rid of Yvonne and her evidence just barely ahead of Yvonne’s attempt to do the same to her.
Allowing Maud to fly away from Gothenburg and her last murder. Well, she certainly flies away to sunnier climes. Whether Yvonne is her last victim – or not.
The story made for the perfect end to this quirky and gruesomely delightful series. AND, there are recipes included in case you want to taste some of the deadly and delicious treats described in the stories – without the poisonous ingredients, of course. If you dare.
Originally published at Reading Reality
In some ways, Maud is rather enviable. She’s 88, she’s still in excellent health, she’s sharp as a tack (or a knife), she owns her own apartment and lives completely independently. Most of us would like to have Maud’s excellent health when we get to be 88. I certainly would.
Very much on the other hand, one of the reasons that Maud is very careful to maintain her excellent health is that she really can’t afford to have other people living with her or knowing too much about her life. Definitely not her past and not even her present.
Because Maud has a tendency to eliminate the people and problems that get in her way. Permanently. But also quite cleverly. She exploits her persona as a frail-seeming, dotty old woman to literally get away with murder.
(Carol, the retired/reformed serial killer in I’m Not the Only Murderer in My Retirement Home, could stand to learn a few lessons from Maud about covering up her crimes and keeping her secrets. Because Maud is a professional at it, while Carol seems to be a talented amateur. After all, Carol got caught and Maud never has.)
Through the first two books in this series, we’ve experienced the scope of Maud’s rather long career of being “up to no good” – which she is very, very good at. What I did not realize until I got into this latest book is that there’s only one new story – I hoped there’d be a few more new stories -while the rest of Maud’s murderous saga was included in those previous books.
So, if you’re curious about ALL of Maud’s exploits – or if you enjoyed I’m Not the Only Murderer in My Retirement Home and want to read about someone who really, truly got it right – for selected definitions of right – you’ll want to start at the beginning with An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good – because Maud is very good at it.
Escape Rating A-: If you’ve read Maud’s entire saga, the new story in this book, “An Elderly Lady Encounters an Unpleasant Problem”, provides an appropriately murderous ending to the entire saga. Not because Maud dies at the end – she absolutely does not. But because someone who has gotten in Maud’s way dies instead. At Maud’s hands. Naturally – at least in Maud’s world.
It’s the final story in the series because Maud has decided to leave her native Gothenburg (Sweden) and is moving to South Africa. Because Cape Town is warm and sunny and Gothenburg is the opposite even in the summer. Whether or not she’s really going to turn over a new leaf is anyone’s guess. Personally, I doubt it, but we’ll probably never know.
But before she leaves, she has one final problem to solve – and she’s a bit less spry and a bit more personally involved in this particular problem than she prefers. But her planning is every single bit as thorough and meticulous as it has always been. Which is precisely what we follow Maud’s exploits FOR. It’s never about blood and gore. It’s about making the murder look so very ordinary that no one could possibly see it as murder. Not even the police – ESPECIALLY not the police.
Just a couple of weeks before her flight to Cape Town, she falls and sprains her ankle. The melting ice that caused her fall is emblematic of why she decided to leave Gothenburg in the first place.
But while as she’s laid up – as much as she allows herself to be while she’s healing – her peace is invaded by someone she didn’t know existed. She knows this strange woman wants something from her – because in Maud’s view everyone wants something. This time she’s right.
The woman claims to have proof that she’s Maud’s half-sister. Not just because their father was a cheating louse – although he was – but documents from her mother and an uncanny resemblance to Maud’s late sister Charlotte.
Yvonne wants Maud’s apartment in Gothenburg, which Maud owns free and clear AND pays no rent on because the owners tried to cheat her and she took them to court and won. Yvonne also has proof that their father was even more of a bastard than Maud already knew he was. Even so many years after his death – in his mistress’s bed – Maud can’t allow that proof to be revealed.
But the story proves that there’s more to nature than nurture in Maud’s career of permanently removing the obstacles in her life. This time around, she only manages to get rid of Yvonne and her evidence just barely ahead of Yvonne’s attempt to do the same to her.
Allowing Maud to fly away from Gothenburg and her last murder. Well, she certainly flies away to sunnier climes. Whether Yvonne is her last victim – or not.
The story made for the perfect end to this quirky and gruesomely delightful series. AND, there are recipes included in case you want to taste some of the deadly and delicious treats described in the stories – without the poisonous ingredients, of course. If you dare.
Originally published at Reading Reality
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
I usually don't love anthologies but this one is the collected stories, more kind of like a Sherlock Holmes anthology than disparate stories about a theme (whether or not they're written by the same author).
Maude is late 80s (87-89 depending on the story) and she's managed to live rent free in an apartment because of some inheritance thing. Remember that joke about Jessica Fletcher? That if you saw her, a murder was sure to follow? Well... that's Maude. Except she's committing the murders. Creatively. Such a change from the Thursday Murder Club et al, genre.
I wish there were more stories, but this says "complete" so it'll have to do.
eARC provided by publisher via Edelweiss.
Maude is late 80s (87-89 depending on the story) and she's managed to live rent free in an apartment because of some inheritance thing. Remember that joke about Jessica Fletcher? That if you saw her, a murder was sure to follow? Well... that's Maude. Except she's committing the murders. Creatively. Such a change from the Thursday Murder Club et al, genre.
I wish there were more stories, but this says "complete" so it'll have to do.
eARC provided by publisher via Edelweiss.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews