Name: The Betrayal
ISBN: 9781905490592

Helen Dunmore

Leningrad, 1952. Andrei, a young doctor, and Ana, a nursery school teacher, know their happiness is precarious. When Andrei treats the child of a senior secret police officer, it becomes painfully clear that his own fate, and that of his family, is bound to the child's.

The Betrayal

Leningrad in 1952: a city recovering from war, where Andrei, a young hospital doctor and Anna, a nursery school teacher, are forging a life together. Summers at the dacha, preparations for the hospital ball, work and the care of sixteen year old Kolya fill their minds. They try hard to avoid coming to the attention of the authorities, but even so their private happiness is precarious. Stalin is still in power, and the Ministry for State Security has new targets in its sights. When Andrei has to treat the seriously ill child of a senior secret police officer, Volkov, he finds himself and his family caught in an impossible game of life and death - for in a land ruled by whispers and watchfulness, betrayal can come from those closest to you. A gripping and deeply moving portrait of life in post-war Soviet Russia, The Betrayal brilliantly shows the epic struggle of ordinary people to survive in a time of violence and terror.

The Betrayal

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