Pastor Viveka and the Old Ladies

Annette Haaland

Viveka is an ordinary free church pastor, rapidly approaching fifty and starting to get sick of always being there for everyone else. At home, she has four kids and an absent-minded husband, and at work, she has to deal with the fierce old ladies who love to bake. As often as she can, she sneaks off to her allotment garden, which she keeps a secret from her congregation, and her husband. Viveka has also started wearing t-shirts underneath her pastor’s garb with controversial slogans, as a form of quiet protest. They say things like: ‘Stop Moaning!’ and ‘Legalise Euthanasia’. Things she would never say aloud. She loves her congregation and her family, of course, it’s just that she needs some time to herself every now and then…

When one of the women on the coffee committee is found dead, the pastor starts poking about in the case. Could there be a murderer in their idyllic community? What does the local estate agent have planned? Can they trust Abbe, the bookseller? And who is behind the mysterious Monks’ Hood Society? Viveka begins to realise that the loveable but quirky figures in her circle of acquaintances might have something to hide.

Pastor Viveka and the Old Ladies is an entertaining, feel-good tale set among the young families and elderly homeowners in one of the suburbs of Stockholm – a story which oozes charm and vivacity, and offers comforting excitement, existential questions and a conviction that we can never claim to know anything concrete about the inner lives of others. Especially not old ladies.