Conviction

I have always heard great things about Denise Mina, and never read her, until now, and now I’m an instant fan. The book is highly engrossing and entertaining, and a great yarn, with enough twists to keep one guessing until the end. Really enjoyable, and I’m thrilled to chat it up.

A woman living a "perfect" life under an assumed name is compulsively listening to a true-crime podcast when her perfect life is shattered. Her best friend and her wealthy, boring husband are having an affair and want her to move out. She doesn't take it well. That's not who she is.

When a photo of her best friend's anorexic and famous husband goes viral online, it happens to have her face in it. And that's very bad news, because a very powerful woman wants her dead. In fact, she had her killed, or thought she had. Now Anna/Sophie is on the run with a man with a large social media following who has started podcasting a follow-up to the true crime podcast Anna had been obsessed with, the one about a boat blowing up with a man she'd known and his two children aboard. The two of them set out to solve the mystery while hiding while podcasting what they figure out.

Denise Mina has a way of creating prickly characters who you love even if they have a habit of hitting people with trays or sugar bowls. She gets human beings and she gets how human beings act online. She's just a brilliant writer, and this book is extraordinarily entertaining. There probably is a lot about identity and social media and how we represent ourselves that could be pondered here, but there's not much time for pondering when you're having so much fun.

Readers will not be able to put this new type of thriller down! Main character Anna McDonald's life explodes in a seemingly mundane way (unfaithful husband), but unexpectedly, things rev up to the highest gear as her previously hidden and traumatic past life catches up with her, and she determines to face her greatest fears. This is a smart and fearless take on the thriller genre, with podcasting and social media playing out on the usual field of killers, paranoia, and bad decisions. This is a winner for the New Books shelf at any library!

Denise Mina is back with a vengeance with Conviction. It's a great read with cutting edge premise and an intriguing plot line.

A true crime podcast that intersects with real life? Sign me right up!!!!! This is the first book I’ve read by Denise Mina and I was hooked right away - as Anna McDonald’s personal life unravels, she finds herself on a road trip with an unlikely companion and they are listening to a podcast about the mysterious sinking of the Dana and Anna begins to try to solve the mystery on her own.

Told in perspectives that alternate between the podcast and Anna, my attention was held the entire book and I flew through the pages eager to know what was going to happen next! And I will say, I was quite satisfied with the resolution! I’m definitely planning to check out Mina’s backlist in the near future!

Thank you to Mulholland Books for an advance copy. All opinions are my own.

Very relevant for today's times, Conviction is a great jumping on point for anyone who has never read any books by Denise Mina before. There's a lovely dark humour throughout the novel which serves has reprieve from the break-neck pace of the story. The main character, Anna, is rough around the edges but likeable and it's very easy to become invested in her from the get go.

Excellent little page turner.

Recommended.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the arc.

4.5*
This was a delightfully surprising read for me. I know what a talented author Denise Mina is, so I suppose I shouldn’t have been shocked at just how much I enjoyed her latest work.
This book had my full, undivided attention from cover to cover!

Anna finds her inner peace reading. (Sound familiar?)
Her other guilty pleasure is listening to true crime podcasts. Her latest favorite is called Death and the Dana. A yacht sinks, drowning a man named Leon along with his 2 children.
Wait a minute.
Did Anna hear that correctly? Leon? It couldn’t possibly be the same Leon from her past. (or could it?) She’s instantly sucked into the podcast as her past begins to re-surface.

Can Anna uncover the truth behind the tragic death of her friend and his children? And what fragile parts of her own life threaten to be exposed as a result?

Denise Mina has a true gift, delivering a mesmerizing tale that’ll keep you flying through the pages right to the end. The characters are vivid, real and very human. I felt I was along for the ride with Annie in her quest for the truth.
The story unfolds from Anna’s POV with the addition of the pod-casts that add such amazing depth. Highly recommend!

A buddy read with Susanne!

Thank you to NetGalley, Mulholland Books and Denise Mina for an ARC to read and review.

What an adventure! Anna (Sophie with a complicated past) has just found out that her husband is taking her children and leaving her to be with her best friend. She escapes to one of her true-crime podcasts, only to realize that it is about someone from her past. When her friend's husband, famous rock star and anorexic, Fin comes by to talk about their shared situation, a nosy neighbor takes a picture of them and posts it online, threatening to reveal Anna's secret past. This is a roller-coaster of a story with the realistic edge of what we love about true-crime and up to the minute type reporting of social media and podcasts.

Always loved Mina, and this book is awesome. Characters, plot, unlikely heroes
It's all put together with humour and grit and F***ing loved it

MurderInCommon.com review here:
https://murderincommon.com/2019/06/02/denise-mina-conviction/

It kept my attention and I couldn't put it down. Interesting characters and loved the plot use of podcasts which makes it very current.

I must confess off the top- I am a huge Denise Mina fan. I wish she was more well known in the US!
Conviction doesn’t disappoint and continues her perfection streak in my eyes. This is a departure from some of her books like her Paddy Meehan series.
The book weaves together today and the past in Anna’s life. Anna’s husband walks out with the kids for her best friend in the beginning of the book. Anna, to stave off madness or suicide, listens to a podcast. Not just any podcast- one that helps develop the whole plot.
Enter Fin Cohen- his wife was Anna’s best friend- the one who left with Anna’s husband. Fin shows up and he and Anna embark on an unlikely journey to solve a mystery and help Anna with her past.
One of the things I love about Denise Mina is the characters she writes. They are always flawed, often a mess in some way, and usually have a great dark sense of humor. They’re relatable.
I suspect Denise Mina is dark and funny in real life too. Anna has some fantastic thoughts- as she reflects on being fired from a job,”He said I did not have the ‘right personality’ for service, which I considered a great compliment.” This cracked me up.
When Anna talks about wealth- “even rich people can only stand in one room at a time.”
I want to discuss others but they might have spoilers so I won’t-but if you read chapter 25- it’s the quote that ends with “I am fucking amazing.” I want to put the whole paragraph before it on a poster and post it in clinics everywhere.
You will know what I mean when you read it.
I am just sad I finished the book. Denise Mina’s books are like an awesome meal, show, or movie: when you finish you wish you ate slower.

Anyone who has read any of Denise Mina's books over the past 20 years knows that she's a highly talented crime writer. Her resume is packed with awards and accolades, and whether it's one her one of her three acclaimed series (Garnethill, Paddy Meehan, Alex Morrow) or inventive standalones like SANCTUM and THE LONG DROP, there's evidence aplenty that Mina is crime writing royalty.

After celebrating the twentieth anniversary last year of her striking debut GARNETHILL, Mina now underlines her versatile talents with this zesty new tale imbued with up-to-the-minute issues.

The main character in CONVICTION is Glasgow wife and mother Anna McDonald, who lives a fairly domestic existence with her lawyer husband Hamish and two young daughters. The comfort and safe banality masks Anna's past and very public trauma she suffered years before.

Now living under a new identity, Anna’s lukewarm reality is upturned in a single day when Hamish leaves her for her best friend, and she learns from a true crime podcast that an old acquaintance is dead. Even worse, a powerful woman who made Anna’s life hell could be involved in some way.

Untethered and desperate for a distraction, Anna becomes obsessed with the true crime podcast, and starts picking at the case of a luxury yacht that sank in the Mediterranean, finding an unlikely ally in the form of the anorexic ex of her former best friend. Pandora's Box opened, together they follow a trail from the Scottish Highlands to continental Europe, hunting for some sort of truth while visiting the hideaways of the rich and the wretched and trying to stay ahead of some very dangerous people.

There are so many things to love about CONVICTION. First and foremost for me, there's a real verve and sense of energy to Mina's storytelling, which blends gut-punch moments with great characterisation, a clever structure, and some nice touches of black humour. This fair hurtles along, and is one of those smile-inducing books even as its full of dark deeds.

CONVICTION is a whirlwind, in the finest way. Recommended.

Sharp, fast-paced, witty and vivid, Conviction by Denise Mina is a lively and engrossing thriller.

Reeling from learning that an old friend, Leon Parker, is assumed to be responsible for the murder-suicide of his two children during her morning coffee on her favourite true crime podcast, Anna McDonald is further devastated when her husband announces over breakfast that he is leaving her, for her pregnant best friend. As she lies on the floor in her hallway considering ending it all, Anna is interrupted by her best friend’s shattered husband, celebrity Fin Cohen and, in need of a distraction from the mornings events, she impulsively decides on a road trip, Fin in tow, with the idea of proving that the producer of ‘Death and the Dana’ has got it all wrong. It’s not the wisest of decisions, especially when a photo of her with Fin goes viral, and now Anna, who used to be someone else, is back on the radar of the woman she believes killed Leon and his family, the same woman who once wanted her dead.

I found Anna to be an utterly compelling narrator for reasons I can’t quite define. Anna is, at least initially, not very likeable, she is unpleasant, rude, and an admitted liar, but well, we meet her on what we assume is probably the worst day of her life. As the story unfolds the reliability of Anna’s narrative remains suspect, but somewhere along the line she earns sympathy, admiration, and eventually trust.

Conviction has more depth than one might expect, exploring themes such as privilege, corruption, mental illness, assault and identity. While the plausibility of the thriller plot may be stretched a bit thin, I found it easy to dismiss any inconsistencies and absurdities. I guessed where responsibility for The Dana’s fate lay fairly early on, but there were other surprises I didn’t see coming, and I was particularly stunned by the circumstances that forced Anna to hide her identity.

I really liked the way in which Mina grounds the novel so thoroughly within modern society and she does an excellent job of exploring the double edged power of social media. The true crime podcast ‘Death and The Dana’ frames the mystery, as Anna and Fin google, tweet, Instagram, and ‘cast as they race across Europe, in their pursuit, and escape, of the truth.

Conviction is a terrific read- entertaining, astute, and inventive. This is the first book I’ve read by Denise Mina, but on the strength of it I have every intention of hunting up her backlist.