Two old men and a baby : or, how Hendrik and Evert get themselves into a jam / Hendrik Groen ; translated by Hester Velmans.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Nine years before the events of the #1 international bestseller The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83 ¼ Years Old , Hendrik and his best friend Evert embark on a madcap adventure--with an unexpected guest.



Hendrik Groen and Evert Duiker, faithful friends in good and bad times, are well over seventy and their lives have quieted down. They see each other once a week to play chess, have a drink, and grab a bite to eat while reflecting on life.



But one day, their peace is rudely disturbed when Evert shows up on Hendrik's doorstep with a surprise in the form of an unexpected little guest. He had spotted a stroller with a baby in it--unattended for just a minute--and, in a moment of utter madness, decided to take it for a walk. Hilarious, right? Not to Hendrik, who can barely believe his friend's stupidity.



After Evert regains recovers from his momentary lapse of sanity, the two seventy-year-olds resolve to return their charge to its parents--hopefully without being noticed. But the quiet neighborhood is now swarmed by bumbling police officers, and they realize that getting rid of their accidental foster child will be more difficult than expected . . .

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Groen (On the Bright Side) once again follows a zany elderly friendship in this disappointing outing. Septuagenarians Hendrik and Evert are old friends with a standing date to play chess at Hendrick's apartment. When Evert gets caught in the rain on his way there one day, he ducks into a school where a Christmas program is taking place and finds a baby girl--who is supposed to be Baby Jesus in the play--sleeping in a stroller in the bathroom. Impulsively deciding to take the baby with him to Hendrick's, Evert sets off a chain of chaos, with school and local authorities frantic to find the missing girl. As Hendrick and Evert try to return her without being caught, a nosy neighbor and an opportunistic sanitation worker pretending to be the kidnapper insert themselves in the situation. Unfortunately, the loose plotting falls apart early, and Evert's choice to kidnap a baby, presented as a lark with no explanation, will befuddle readers. Add in paper-thin secondary characters--including police, school administrators, and casual observers only concerned about how the missing baby scandal could affect them--and there's very little here to hook readers. This feels more like a pile of errors than a comedy of them. (June)

Kirkus Book Review

If stealing a 12-week-old baby four days before Christmas sounds potentially amusing, this might be the novel for you. Seventy-something Dutchman Evert Duiker, "loudmouth, bullshit artist, heart of gold," is on his way to his weekly chess game with fellow septuagenarian Hendrik Groen when he has to pee. He stops at the Princess Margriet School and, on his way out of the bathroom, sees Sabine Verbeek--baby Jesus in the evening's Christmas pageant--waiting unattended in her pram. Evert decides to take her, not out of malice, but simply because he "[thinks] it would be fun." He and Hendrik immediately acknowledge that "the parents must be out of their minds with worry" but ultimately worry more about being punished for kidnapping. To assuage their guilt as they bumble through feedings, diaper changes, and abandoned attempts to leave Sabine to be recovered in an underpass, they call the school custodian to say "it's all been a misunderstanding." The custodian's opportunistic brother has other ideas and phones the parents demanding a 100,000 euro ransom. If this plot doesn't entice you, perhaps the tiresome characters will. The women, with one late exception, are particularly reductive, depicted as either scheming (the mayor), shrinking (Sabine's mother), or annoying (assorted wives, neighbors, and passersby). Men disparage their appearances by calling them "lard-ass" and "fat"; yearn for one's "lovely ass" and another's "big tits"; and belittle them as "that broad," "old witch," "nosy bitch," "nagging old lady," and more. In the end, the wunderkind chief prosecutor, seemingly motivated solely by his desire to show up the mayor, who "looks like she's spent an hour at the beauty parlor," comes to the rescue. Droll buffoonery built atop antiquated stereotypes, repudiated gender roles, and threadbare "wit." Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.