Just Finished Reading: The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules by Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg (FP: 2012)

When the austerity measures began to bite, especially when the daily cups of coffee dropped to two and pastries withdrawn altogether, it was the final straw for Martha Andersson. From that point on revolution was in the air. But she couldn’t do it alone. Any good conspiracy needs conspirators and Martha was lucky to have some close at hand – very close as they all lived in the same retirement home in Stockholm. What they needed was money, lots of it and fast. The only way to do that, a constant refrain from her extensive reading of crime novels reminded her, was to plan a brilliant robbery, so that it was she’d do. Escaping the retirement home thanks to the temporary theft of the buildings master key the newly formed League of Pensioners plan their first heist which nets very little. But practice makes perfect and their next crime will be sensational. Next door to their hotel is a world famous art gallery with some of the most expensive paintings in the world housed within. Carefully the case the building and select a pair of paintings that can be hidden by their Zimmer frames and those they are able to lift off the wall without too much upper body strength. The police are baffled having expected career criminals and fast cars rather than 79 year old Martha and her friends as they hobble out of the gallery on their way back to their expensive hotel room. Flushed by their success they demand a huge ransom for the return of the paintings fully expecting to get caught in the act and be sent to a much more comfortable prison than their increasingly uncomfortable retirement home. But, as with even the best plans things don’t quite turn out the way they’d hoped. With the police as a loose end it looks like the League will get away with their crime. The only question is what they’ll do with all that money – if they can lift the bags of cash onto their trolleys and make a leisurely get-away.

I think I picked this up in my local supermarket because it looked like it was fun and different. It certainly was both. Told with a wry sense of humour (you could almost see the author writing this with a continual smile on her face) this was amusing and somewhat sweet rather than laugh out loud funny – though it did make me do that a few times. All of the main protagonists from the retirement home, even the slightly annoying ones, grew on you (Martha herself was excellent and I’d love to have someone like that as an aging Aunt I could laugh with). The crimes themselves were well thought out and actually plausible – after a fashion. There was even a few tense moments when the League came up against ‘real’ criminals who threatened to overturn their plans and even do them some harm. The police did turn out to be rather silly which I couldn’t help finding a bit annoying but it was very much a minor annoyance. It did take a bit to get started but then so did the old dears before they started eating properly and taking gentle exercise. I was highly amused by one of the Leagues children (in their 40’s) who not only admired their mother’s renewed love of life and daring but actually helped the League in some of their later endeavours (without giving too much away.

Written with obviously a lot of love for the characters as well as more than a sprinkle of anger at the way older people are treated today, this was a delightfully different crime novel that turned out to be part comedy and part a heart-warming tale of pensioners who can do things for themselves. Recommended if you want a gentle read that will leave you smiling for days afterwards.

Translated from the Swedish by Rod Bradbury

 [2015 Reading Challenge: A funny book – COMPLETE (30/50)]