Fans of Douglas Kennedy will know that ‘happenstance’ — those moments in life where everything changes because we were in a certain place at a certain time — is a recurring theme in his work.
Set mostly in Berlin, The Moment is about American writer Thomas Nesbitt’s relationship with Petra Dussman — a relatively brief encounter that took place during the Cold War in the 1980s but which was to have a lasting impact on both lives. Essentially,The Moment is a sad love story with spy thriller elements.
People and Relationships
Kennedy writes well about people and relationships and, for me at least, is at his best when he focuses on the drama of human relationships. In The Moment, it is only when he begins to focus on the relationship between Thomas and Petra that the novel really takes off. I found the early part of the book overly long and, unusually for Kennedy’s work, difficult to get in to, but when Thomas meets the artist Alastair Fitzsimons-Ross, and soon thereafter becomes involved in a relationship with Petra, the plot becomes more engaging and the pace quickens.
[Source: I purchased the Kindle edition published by Cornerstone Digital, April 28, 2011. ISBN: 1439180792.]
See also: The Heat of Betrayal by Douglas Kennedy.