I actually missed The Siege when it was first published but I did buy a copy as soon as I had finished The Betrayal. For me The Betrayal is an even better novel and fans of The Siege will not be disappointed.
It continues the story of Anna and Andre and their struggle to survive in post-war Soviet Russia. They may no-longer have to boil leather for 'soup' but getting food still mean queuing, perhaps for hours, hoping that the supply will not run out before they reach the head of the queue. The people of Leningrad may no-longer have to worry about the enemy without, but the enemy within is real, nothing has really changed. From the moment that Andre is asked to look at a sick child, the son of Volkov a senior secret-police officer, I had a sense of foreboding. The suspense builds with every page as the main characters, a doctor and nursery teacher, are caught up in a situation from which there is no escape under the Stalinist regime. It made me try to imagine what it would be like to live in a society where you lived in fear of being denounced by 'friends' or neighbours, where 'trust no-one' was a creed you lived by. Then again, can we really condemn the betrayers? Their lives, the lives of their families were also threatened and perhaps they just did what they had to to survive.
This is fiction and yet it reads like fact, I believed in the characters, believed that this situation occured. Dunmore takes the reader on a journey into the heart of Soviet Russia, this novel entertains and educates, what more can you ask?
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