IAN McEwan is a master of the short story, so it's no surprise that his new novella On Chesil Beach is a success.

It may be only 166 pages long, but it's not short on the big themes of love, duty, responsibility and consequence.

It's July 1962, and the Sixties are not yet swinging. Edward and Florence are on their honeymoon at a hotel on the Dorset coast. Both are virgins and approach their wedding night with differing emotions; he with excited anticipation, she with a cold and calculated terror.

In McEwan's last novel, Saturday, arguably his finest, the Booker Prize-winning author takes the events of one day - the Saturday of the anti-Iraq war march in London of 2004 - and builds on it his critique of the war on terror and how it has transformed our lives today.

On Chesil Beach dissects an even shorter time period, one evening, but shows with devastating power how the mistakes of a moment can haunt for a lifetime.