Book at Bedtime - The Betrayal - Episode 10

In her latest novel, The Betrayal, Helen Dunmore returns to the Soviet Union, and to the city of Leningrad whose history she so powerfully evoked in her best-seller The Siege. Now, a decade later, starvation and bitter cold have been replaced with fear and suspicion, as the people of Leningrad do their best to keep their heads down and their lives unremarkable in an era of accusations, arrests and the midnight knock at the door. In today's final episode: in a final act before his fall from grace, Volkov, Commissar of the secret police, has given Andrei a way out. Instead of execution he will be sent to Siberia. Meanwhile Anna is in hiding, waiting for the birth of their baby. The Reader is Sara Kestelman, the abridger is Sally Marmion and the producer is Di Speirs.