The Exception

“Those who avail themselves of The Kaiser’s Last Kiss will relish its crisp, adroit and subtle tale of great personal power. . . . [with] sufficient ambitions and conflicts to carry [this] masterly short novel to a satisfying end. History is a tease and a provocation to good storytelling and mythmaking, and The Kaiser’s Last Kiss, with both its historicities and inventions, celebrates that fact.”  

"Alan Judd brilliantly illuminates the tension that can rack those who must choose between conflicting loyalties, not to mention the anguish that comes with the burden of guarding the most vital of secrets."

"[Alan Judd] has an imagination as vibrant as it is intelligent and he makes excellent use of it in this dramatic tale about the German Kaiser Wilhelm II’s last days exiled in Holland, now occupied by Nazi troops. . . . What makes The Kaiser’s Last Kiss acceptable even to the most skeptical reader of such speculative fiction is that it is firmly grounded in reality."

"This is a story that shows us how the nastiest regimes are composed of real people. Judd has taken some unlikely ingredients...and, brilliantly, fashioned them into a touching, poignant story."

"A haunting tribute to a near-forgotten figure... Judd has complete command of the subtleties of character, ambition and emotional ambiguity in extreme circumstances-- an unusual and intelligent treatment of the Third Reich."

"Judd's engrossing tale, rooted in actuality, teases out the mixed responses that can exist between, and within, people."

"A fascinating and imaginative exploration of a seminal episode of 20th-century history."

"Fascinating...if one of the hallmarks of a good novel is that the characters do not remain static but are subtly transformed by events, then this is a very good novel indeed."

"A highly accomplished novel [with an] intricate and superbly crafted plot. In a small compass, Judd manages to bring home the reality of the war with remarkable vividness. There is not a spare word here. If you start, you'll finish."

“Alan Judd has written a quite superb account about a vital point in world history, touched by all those issues common to us all: love, sex, doubt, courage, weakness and loyalty. What does a good man do when he finds that he is sworn to do evil? The Kaiser's Last Kiss is an extraordinarily fine book, rich in wisdom, and blessed with sparkling historical erudition."

A page-turner. . . . This is a novel that bears reading carefully, savoring the historical detail and the use of tension that Judd employs.