"The little old lady who broke all the rules" by Catharina Ingleman-Sundberg. This book is published by Pan in 2014 and has 300 pages.
A group of Old age home clients Rake-Sailor turned Gardner, Brains-Inventor, Christina-Millionaire, Anna Greta-Banker, lead by Martha-a former teacher, (All more than a decade past their retirement ages) decide to rebel against the oppressive management in an incredible way. By plotting to kidnap paintings to bring zest in their staid lives.
Can they even get their old and tired bodies to move? Can they escape the home? Can they succeed in their crime?
It's a crazy idea. Walkers and walking sticks wielding septunagenarians getting bored, longing for glamorous prison, pulling off crimes and still remaining free at the end. As crazy as it sounds, it's a fantastic idea.
Author pulls off first crime very well. But then the book becomes stagnant when the oldies surrender and are imprisoned. I was close to abandoning it during that period. But then they are released and pull off another one. This one is a bit hurrirledly written. The book ends with a seed for a sequel. Btw: the sequel is already released recently.
Author has a Swedish Dry humor. She does not go overboard with it. Narration is very good in patches. The story looses its tempo due to the jail term. She should have avoided the jail term and gone to Crime 2 straight away. That way the flow would not be lost and book would have become shorter and crisp.
There are a number of books by Swedish authors released in English in last few years. Jonas Jonasson's 3 books '100 year old ....', Girl who saved ...' & 'Hitman Andres ....', Romain Puertolas' 'The Fakir ...', Millenium trilogy by Stieglitz Larsson are some examples. The first two authors have also displayed Swedish dry humor. Sweden is known for its book culture and affordable book prices. Catharina continues the tradition.
Read if it sounds interesting.
No comments:
Post a Comment