The Betrayal Dunmore Helen by Dunmore Helen 9780141946030, 0141946032, B07BS3DSXD instant download after payment.

Helen Dunmore’s gripping thriller evokes a land ruled by whispers and watchfulness, where betrayal can come from those closest to you.

Leningrad in 1952: a city recovering from war. Andrei, a young hospital doctor, and Anna, a nursery school teacher, are forging a life together. 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, he finds himself and his family caught in an impossible game of life and death.

"Since this is a strongly plot-driven novel it would spoil it to say much more about what happens. Unlike The Siege, which was essentially descriptive, The Betrayal relies for its effects on the characters and story Dunmore has made up. Her research is meticulous, and details of the workings of Soviet bureaucracy, hospital life and Leningrad in the 1950s are expertly stitched in....With The Betrayal she has spliced a rather cosy domestic story with the horrible history of Stalin's Russia, and written an absorbing and thoughtful tale of good people in hard times."   -   Susanna Rustin, The Guardian

Helen Dunmore a prolific poet, novelist and writer for children and young adults, died of cancer at 64 in 2017. Her last collection of poetry won the Costa Poetry award posthumously.  Her first novel, Zennor in Darkness, was published in 1993 when she was 40. Her personality was warm - and she dedicated much time to helping other writers through the Arvon foundation, the Society of Authors and the Royal Literary Fund.