Time for another round of Yvo’s Shorties! This time around two authors I’ve enjoyed in the past and that were once again successful.

Title: The Good Samaritan
Author: John Marrs
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Crime
First published: December 1st 2017
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Finished reading: August 18th 2021
Pages: 390

“Because when you’re not considered to be a threat, you can get away with much, much more.”


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It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of his work and I’ve been meaning to get to some of his pending backlist titles for a while now. The Good Samaritan was one of them, and I’ve been looking forward to pick it up… And while I do think this was my least favorite of his so far, considering it’s John Marrs we are talking about it is of course still an excellent read. I think the fact that I didn’t LOVE love this one mostly has to do that part of the story had a bit of a domestic thriller feel, which is a subgenre that doesn’t really seem to work for me right now. My negative feelings towards the main character Laura played a role too, but then again she isn’t supposed to be likeable in the first place… I do think her character is executed brilliantly, and it was fascinating to see how she manipulated the situation over and over again. The Good Samaritan has a multiple POV structure, although the two main characters in play are Laura and Ryan. The structure of the plot is build up in such way to create maximum impact and there are plenty of plot twists, shocking topics and suspense to be found along the way. With an unreliable narrator, secrets, lies, crime and manipulation, things are never as they seem and fans of dark psychological thrillers with unpredictable characters will have a great time with this one.

Title: Two Old Men And A Baby
(Hendrik Groen #3)
Author: Hendrik Groen
Translator: Hester Velmans
Genre: Fiction, Contemporary
First published: June 3rd 2019
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Finished reading: August 19th 2021
Pages: 275
(Originally published in Dutch: ‘Een Kleine Verrassing’)

“To my mind, there was nothing wrong with a bit of excitement every once in a while, naturally, but this was really a bit over the top.”


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I LOVED my first meeting with Hendrik Groen back in 2019 and the second book was a success for me as well, so I was excited when I heard that there was going to be another Hendrik and Evert adventure. Technically I could read these in Dutch, but I decided to wait for the English translation as I had a feeling I would appreciate the characters and humor better that way (plus I’m lazy as reading in Dutch is too much work haha). Two Old Men And A Baby takes place nine years before the first two books, which gives us a (slightly) younger and more mobile Hendrik and Evert to deal with. Their personalities don’t change though, and as always I loved the dry humor and dialogues. This story reads like a train and I had a lot of fun reading about what Hendrik and Evert were up to this time around. While I do think this is the weakest book yet, as the plot isn’t all that credible and I wasn’t too much of a fan of Harry/Wil’s POV, it is still a more than solid read. Despite the lack of credibility and things being a bit over the top, the humor is right up my alley and sometimes having fun reading about absurd situations is more important than credible plot twists. I’ll definitely be looking forward to hear news about book number four being translated!

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