The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation

Sullivan (Stalin’s Daughter) offers a fascinating overview of a six-year cold case investigation by FBI agent Vincent Pankoke and his amazing team of psychologists, criminologists, archivists, and forensic scientists, who aimed to definitively identify the person or people who in 1944 betrayed Anne Frank, her family, and four Dutch Jews to the Gestapo. Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl has been read by more 30 million people, but it ends just before the eight people hiding in an attic in Amsterdam during World War II are discovered and sent to a concentration camp. Sullivan’s excellent attempt to understand how eight people can go undetected for more than two years allows her to offer a vivid picture of Amsterdam, wartime, and the best and worst of the human heart. Julie Whelan’s narration of the audiobook creates the tension necessary for listeners to get lost in the Franks’ story—living in a time and place where it was difficult to know who to trust and where all actions had to be questioned.