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  • Published: 1 April 2012
  • ISBN: 9780099509745
  • Imprint: Arrow
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 656
  • RRP: $24.99

The Moment




A secret from the past can change your life for ever. A heart-breaking love story set in Cold War Berlin by the author of The Pursuit of Happiness and Five Days.

Thomas Nesbitt is a divorced American writer living a very private life in Maine. Until, one wintry morning, his solitude is disrupted by the arrival of a package postmarked Berlin.

But what is more unsettling is the name accompanying the return address on the package: Petra Dussmann. For she is the woman with whom Thomas had an intense love affair twenty-five years before in a divided Berlin, where people lived fearfully under the shadows of the Cold War.

And so Thomas is forced to grapple with a past he has always kept hidden. For Petra Dussman was a refugee from the police state of East Germany. And her tragic secrets were to re-write both their destinies.

  • Published: 1 April 2012
  • ISBN: 9780099509745
  • Imprint: Arrow
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 656
  • RRP: $24.99

About the author

Douglas Kennedy

Douglas Kennedy's previous thirteen novels include the critically acclaimed bestsellers The Big Picture, The Pursuit of Happiness, A Special Relationship and The Moment. He is also the author of three highly-praised travel books. The Big Picture was filmed with Romain Duris and Catherine Deneuve; The Woman in the Fifth with Ethan Hawke and Kristin Scott Thomas.

His work has been translated into twenty-two languages. In 2007 he was awarded the French decoration of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and in 2009 the inaugural Grand Prix de Figaro. Born in Manhattan in 1955, he has two children and currently divides his time between London, Paris, Berlin, Maine and New York.

Also by Douglas Kennedy

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Praise for The Moment

An author of consistently engaging and clever bestsellers, Kennedy has ranged from Stateside dramas to noirish thrillers. The Moment pulls together both strains in his fiction, marrying romantic tragedy with Le Carre-style espionage. The novel's set pieces are robustly staged and Kennedy turns the plot on its axis several times. The sadness at the heart of the novel is what makes it more than just an evocative recreation of an interesting time and place.

Independent

5 stars

Express

His most ambitious to date and most deeply felt.

Daily Mirror

Kennedy is an absolute master at love stories with heart-stopping twists ... The Moment is simply sensational.

Times

Kennedy, like William Boyd and Paul Watkins, has always managed to walk that precarious tight-rope of credibility between the twin towers of popular and literary fiction... Kennedy is particularly adept at capturing the ugliness of modern life... He captures with acuity men's self-destructive nature and the eddies in which husbands, fathers and sons find themselves caught.

Independent on Sunday

Douglas Kennedy's 10th novel, The Moment, a tome running to almost 500 pages, is weighty enough to crush any doubts about this prolific author's status as a stylish popular novelist and a classy purveyor of the gripping yarn... It is the quality of evaluation, this conscious appraisal of unforeseen loss, of gallant naivety, of the bullish youthful belief in the right to happiness, that sets Kennedy's work apart from that of many other popular novelists... It is a gripping read and an honest attempt to address human frailty while playing out our minor destinies in the face of great love and desperate loss.

Irish Times

Douglas Kennedy is back with his 10th novel, The Moment. In this gripping love story, a man receives a package from a woman with whom he had a love affair during the Cold War.

Good Housekeeping

A morally complex page-turner.

Red Magazine

The two central characters of Thomas and Petra are wonderful. They both come across as living, breathing individuals. This is a beautifully written book which is all about an enduring love, despite what some would describe as truly insurmountable circumstances. Highly recommended.'

Bookbag

The story is controlled and gripping, tainting you by taking its time to reveal details of the mystery woman, Petra, socking you with unexpected twists and reassuring you with a sense that his story will follow through and won't let you down. And it doesn't... It is bittersweet and romantic enough to sweep you away - a perfect escapist read.

Irish Independent

The storytelling is served up thick and meaty ... the result is a big, satisfying read.

Daily Mail