The Betrayal Author:Helen Dunmore Leningrad in 1952: a city recovering from war, where Anna, a nursery school teacher, and Andrei, a young hospital doctor, 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 mind. They try hard to avoid coming to the attention of the authorities, but even s... more »o 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.« less