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

His most ambitious to date and most deeply felt.

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

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.

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.

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.

A morally complex page-turner.

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.'

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.

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.

5 stars

Incredibly thought-provoking and poignant

Irresistible comfort read

So fluid, the pages turn themselves

It would be a hard heart indeed that remained unmoved . . . the tender feelings that Noble engenders in her readers are to be cherished

Tissues are essential. You'll ricochet between delicately watering eyes at the romance of it all and howling sobs at the unbearable tenderness