The Betrayal... superb but shocking

As a sequel to The Siege, Helen Dunmore writes a stand alone novel, set 10 years after the Leningrad siege. Hopes are high that Anna, her brother Kolya and husband Andrei can rebuild their lives, by keeping quietly diligent and out of sight of Stalin's secret service. However Andrei, as a hardworking junior paediatrican, is not-so-innocently referred a young child who has a serious illness, by one of his senior colleagues. When he realises that he is a son of a senior secret policeman, Andrei believs that his medical duty is most important, and the fact that he quickly develops rapport with the young boy has enormous consequences. This is another meticulously researched historical novel, which describes the 1950's Soviet bureaucracy and hospital life, from the perspective of good people trying to do the right thing in challenging times. I was alternately mesmerised by the daily unravelling and shocked by Stalin's Russia, and ultimately thankful that I could be an avid observer.