Unfortunately I requested this book without knowing that it is part of a series.. therefore I didn’t get to read it.
Thank you netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to have this book in exchange for a honest review.

I was zooming along this fast-paced thriller, absolutely loving the many twists and turns (and the threat of danger around every corner), until...I got to the end. All of a sudden, the kinda-low rating on Goodreads made complete sense. The ending of this book absolutely made no sense to me! I was hoping for a payoff that would tie up all of the loose ends, but Mina decided to do some shoddy piecing together of the puzzle that left me with way too many questions and a general mystified feeling. This was such a promising book that had some great angles to it, but the ending completely ruined it for me. I also noticed that it's meant to be a series now, but I can't see how I could read another one considering it might end up as frustrating as this one was. (Also pretty shocked this was a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick - maybe she didn't read it all the way to the end?)

Scottish author Denise Mina's latest novel, Conviction, is a fast-paced thriller narrated by Anna, a smart and sassy podcast addict with a mysterious past. While listening to a true-crime story she realizes that she knows its subject, Leon Parker (thought to have murdered his two children and committed suicide). The podcasts initially serve as a distraction from her failing marriage until a coincidence accidentally shines a light on her life and forces her to flee her home. She continues to listen to the episodes while on the run, and the more deeply immersed she becomes in subsequent broadcasts, the more convinced she is that those hunting for her are the same people that killed Parker and his family. She determines that she needs to track down the true killer to protect herself and her two daughters from becoming victims themselves.

Inserting the text of fictional podcasts throughout the novel to drive the plot puts a clever twist on a well-explored genre. The episodic nature of the medium works well in this context; a chapter of the novel may contain the text of a single broadcast, simultaneously revealing new information to both the book's heroine and its readers, ramping up the tension and setting a direction for Anna's next move.

The most appealing aspect of the novel, though, is its protagonist; she's an absolutely intriguing character. Readers learn in the first pages that Anna's whole life, including her identity, is based on lies.

Just tell the truth. I've said that to my own kids. What a ridiculous thing to teach children. No one wants to hear it. There has to be a reason to tell the truth. I stopped some time ago, and let me tell you, it was great. Best decision I ever made. Lie and lie again, make up a name, a background, your likes and dislikes, just fabricate the whole thing. So much more rational. But I'm telling you the truth in this book. There's a very good reason for that.

Although the book is ostensibly about solving the murders, most of the plot revolves around Anna gradually revealing why she's running from her past and how her history connects her to the crime - a more compelling thread than her investigation of the killings. The narration, too, is a highlight, with Anna's wry sense of humor evident throughout. As she enlists the help of a friend, she records this exchange:

"There's no evidence anyone is after us, Anna, a lot has happened to you, I'm not saying it hasn't, but maybe you're also just a bit paranoid?" I didn't know what to say to that. I am paranoid but men have tried to kill me and that does tend to make you paranoid.

There were a few stylistic elements that did detract from my overall enjoyment. The author often has Anna drop a reference to her past out of nowhere, with no connection to what readers have already been told. Several times I had a "Wait… what?" reaction, and I had to back up to see if I'd missed something. Also, almost every chapter ends with an ominous one- or two-sentence cliffhanger; for example, a chapter about Anna's daily routine on a "mundane suburban Monday" concludes with the sentence, "I should have stayed under the sea with the ghosts." Coupled with the very short chapters I felt the technique was a blatant attempt to artificially create a page-turner, and it got old after a while. Lastly, many parts of the plot required a suspension of disbelief, almost-but-not-quite to the point where I found the whole thing too incredible. The protagonist's narration was captivating, however, and in the end that's what kept me engaged.

I found Conviction to be a light, entertaining read that would likely appeal to fans of thrillers, particularly those who prefer strong, interesting female protagonists.

Denise Mina is one of the best crime/thriller authors writing today. Each of her novels (that I've read) has been an excellent read: thrilling, gripping, and featuring well-drawn, realistic characters. CONVICTION is no exception.

The novel follows Anna, whose husband suddenly announces that he's leaving her, thereby throwing her life into a bit of a tailspin. Like many people today, Anna seeks comfort and distraction in podcasts. For me, it's politics and entertainment podcasts. For Anna, it's a true-crime podcast. Only, as she listens to the podcast, she realizes that she recognizes some of the names and events covered/featured. Might she know the truth behind the true-crime mystery? Anna decides to throw herself into investigating the mystery for herself.

Denise Mina's writing is excellent, her characters engaging, and the plot gripping. A great read, I highly recommend this to all fans of crime/mystery fiction.

(Also, because podcasts have been cropping up in many crime/thriller novels, I think this is the best I've read so far.)

Conviction’ is a crime novelist’s paean to that modern paraliterary phenomenon, the true crime podcast. “A good podcast can add a glorious multi-world texture to anything,” muses Anna McDonald, a posh Glasgow housewife with a carefully buried past and a swiftly crumbling present. “I’ve resisted an Assyrian invasion while picking up dry-cleaning. I’ve seen justice served on a vicious murderer while buying underpants.”

Scottish author Denise Mina has written three acclaimed series featuring female crime fighters: detective Alex Morrow, reporter Paddy Meehan, and survivor Maureen O’Donnell. But her last book, ‘The Long Drop,’ ventured into true crime, with a genre-busting, semi-fictionalized account of a Glaswegian serial killer. Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that ‘Conviction’ works as both a procedural page-turner and a meta meditation on the nature of storytelling.

“It’s primal, the need to tell,” Anna says. “In some cultures, not telling your story is regarded as a sign of mental illness.” All kinds of stories have value, Mina suggests, whether true or fictional; written or oral; novels, folk tales, or ghost stories; Tweets, testimonies, or confessions. The same story will be told differently by different people: “You will have been told this story before, but only in one way and not in this way.” And the protagonist of one story may be a minor, even disposable character in another. As Anna realizes after an unforeseen personal crisis upends her comfortable existence, “I was in the wrong story.” Small wonder she never saw the twist coming.

Anna distracts herself by bingeing a new podcast, “Death and the Dana.” (Tagline: “A sunken yacht, a murdered family on board, a secret yet unsolved.”) She muses: “There is a warmth and a comfort in hearing about people in worse situations than your own. I had not murdered my family and killed myself. I hung onto that.” Earbuds firmly in place, she finds her equilibrium “straddling worlds—from a cocaine-addled Italian supermodel’s autobiography to a cold bathroom in Glasgow.” But when she discovers that an old acquaintance is one of the victims—or is he one of the culprits?—those worlds collide, and her guilty pleasure suddenly feels a lot more meaningful than her own “banal miseries.”

It’s one thing to live vicariously through a podcast; it’s quite another to jump into the action, uninvited, which is exactly what Anna does. Convinced that both the corrupt cops and the earnest podcast host have fingered the wrong people, she sets out, impulsively and recklessly, to track down the real killer (along with that Italian supermodel).

Mina’s previous novels have been largely confined to Glasgow, to the point that the gritty Scottish city feels like a recurring character. But ‘Conviction’ takes to the road early and doesn’t stop, careening from the Highlands to the Basque coast to Venice to Paris in the breezy, breakneck manner of a Dan Brown novel or a Mission Impossible sequel. It’s a departure from Mina’s usual hard-boiled, tightly-plotted Tartan Noir, but one that fits the high-concept, social-media-driven plot.

And Anna is a classic Mina creation—a smart but sometimes unlikable and unreliable heroine that readers will root for nonetheless. Her reluctant partner in globetrotting and amateur sleuthing is a Fin Cohen, a reclusive, anorexic rock star whose every move (and meal) is fodder for the online rumor mill. Anna’s efforts to maintain a low profile keep getting sidetracked by selfie-seeking fans. “The modern mania for photographs is hard on those in hiding,” she grumbles. “If you have a friend with a thin backstory who always wants to take the picture or slides behind the heads of others in group snaps, be kind to them. Camera phones are a bloody menace.”

Amusingly, Fin gets sucked into the podcast in spite of himself, to the point that he launches his own DIY podcast, broadcasting Anna’s rival theories in real time to his vast online following—with near-instantaneous consequences as armed thugs and rabid fans pursue them across Europe.

Anna and Fin’s brushes with mortal danger are balanced by (and sometimes superimposed on) near-absurdist moments of levity. “The podcast episode, ‘We Got Drunk with A Hired Assassin,’ won a number of awards and broke records for downloads,” Anna remarks. Mina masterfully navigates these Hitchcockian shifts in tone as the back-and-forth between the convincingly addictive podcast (complete with bonus online material and an annoying sponsor) and Anna’s own murky backstory—parceled out in similarly tantalizing bites—builds to a satisfying crescendo.

But after this narrative tour de force, the conclusion fizzles. The big reveal will surprise only the least attentive readers. Justice is served, but the body count has skyrocketed. Though Anna’s own story has been laid bare, it is no closer to closure. All she can do is tell it in a new way.

I've read several books by Denise Mina, and although I have enjoyed them all, this is my favorite. I couldn't put this book down.! The main character, Anna, has many secrets, and those secrets are revealed in a terrifying adventure as she tries to remain alive with a killer after her. There are many shocking twists to this suspenseful and intriguing story. Denise Mina knows how to create believable characters while taking the reader on a thrilling ride that winds through Europe. If you like mysteries and suspense, you will enjoy Conviction.


#netgalley#conviction#denisemina#mystery#suspense

I like this author's books. I recommend this book as well as all the author's other books. I look forward to more books by Denise Mina.

Sadie but for adults. If like me you aspire to listen to more podcasts you will love this one. Simple yet fast paced and brilliantly done

This is one of those stories where I didn't really like the main character at first, and if it weren't for my previously well established appreciation of Mina's writing I might have given up on it -- but with Mina I always know first appearances are just doors to a twisty journey that is both bizarre and elementally real. This story was a prime example of that -- when the story dives deeper after its ping-pong "surfacey" setup I found myself liking Anna even before she proves herself likable just because she's so strangely interesting. By the end of the book, I'd laughed out loud numerous times, gotten angry, and felt like hi-fiving Mina for another job well done--and yes, I do very much like Anna by the final page.

Four and a half, verging closely on five. I love that with a Denise Mina book I don't know what I'm going to get, but whatever it is will be good. I love that the protagonist is highly, almost proudly, unlikable (with some very good reasons). I love that this is a dark murder mystery crossed with a madcap picaresque romp, intercut with some very affecting moments of insight and connection. Everything that at first seemed like a common trope - the husband leaving, the dark secret in her past, the famous musician sidekick - was subsequently skewed in some way so that the reader is enjoyably off-balance. The characters are nuanced and flawed and the relationships are real and devoid of sentimentality. At first I kept forgetting that the characters weren't in the same pandemic conditions I am and wondering how they could go to restaurants and cross borders, but eventually I started to forget, which is as big a compliment to this book as anything else I could say. I loved this.

I am a member of the American Library Association Reading List Award Committee. This title was on the 2020 shortlist. The complete list of winners and shortlisted titles is at <a href="https://rusaupdate.org/2020/01/2020-reading-list-years-best-in-genre-fiction-for-adult-readers/">

This was a very interesting approach to a murder mystery. As the reader is learning about the past of the main character, Anna aka Sophia, she is investigating the death of a former friend and dealing with an upset home life. Ms. Mina did a great job of interweaving two complex stories, keeping the suspense high and the reader fully engaged. I also enjoyed the random supporting characters who brought interesting moments to the story. I did feel the underlying story of the murder itself was a bit murky at times and the ending may have been a tad forced. But overall I truly enjoyed the story and its fresh take on the inclusion of a podcast as the basis of a book.

This review appears in Murder by the Book's (Portland, Oregon) blog:

Denise Mina’s writing voice is jazzy, lippy, arresting, and Scottish. In her latest book, she presents a complicated, enigmatic, troubled protagonist, a character she writes so well.

Anna McDonald is the young mother of two wonderful daughters and the companion of a respectable lawyer, Hamish. She does the laundry, picks up dry cleaning, drops kids at school, and executes other mundane household tasks. On the face of it, she is a normal housewifey-type character.

The first eccentric thing about Anna is she likes to awaken early and listen to podcasts. Before her husband wakes and their mutual stresses and demands begin to take their daily form, she sits with a cup of tea and listens to whatever happens her way. She is just about to begin a podcast by Trina Keany, a producer on the MisoNetwork. Trina’s podcast is entitled, “Death and the Dana.” But before Anna can get fully into it, Hamish announces he is leaving her. He is taking the children and he is going to Portugal for a vacation with Estelle. Estelle? Anna’s best friend Estelle? What?

Amid the flurry of the tossed contents of Hamish’s suitcase, Anna is left to grieve. At first she is only capable of lying on her hall floor. Eventually, a knock on the door intrudes on her catatonia. It’s Fin. Estelle’s husband Fin. He obnoxiously batters on the door and harasses her through the mail slot until she opens up.

It is hard for her to focus on Fin and his problems. While still stunned by events and before Fin arrived, Anna continued to listen to “Death and the Dana,” her podcast. She hears a name she has not heard in almost a decade: Leon Parker. According to the podcast, Leon and his two adult children drowned aboard Leon’s yacht not too long ago. He had just married Gretchen Teigler, a very, very wealthy and powerful woman. Gretchen was not there when the ship went down, and she says she has no idea why Leon would destroy his own boat and kill his own children. Trina, the podcaster, has many things to explore about the mysterious sinking in the next episodes of her show. But suddenly, Anna must carry on her own investigation into the sinking. She is convinced that Leon would never have killed himself, let alone other people, let alone his children.

Here are two more bits of information about Anna: She does not drive and she will not fly in an airplane. That’s because she is not Anna McDonald, and both driving and traveling abroad might expose her deceit. Mina reveals very early on that Anna is really “Sophie Bukaran.” In spits and spots throughout the book, Mina tells the story of what happened to Sophie/Anna and why Anna declares that Gretchen Teigler is trying to kill her.

Back to the story. So Anna tears out of her house with the keys to Hamish’s prized car. What? Anna can drive? Fin tags along. Anna can’t be bothered with a road trip companion, so she periodically tries to get rid of him. But he sticks like glue. He is a bonehead about the podcast, a bonehead about being dumped, a bonehead about what really is going on with Anna. And it turns out he’s a sticky, anorexic, persistent, famous bonehead. Fin was once a rock star. Then he was famous for the disaster that enwrapped his band and his life. One of the reasons he doesn’t want to be left behind is he’s broke. Anna, on the other hand, before lighting out, scooped up the pound notes Hamish had given Anna to resettle in a little apartment somewhere.

It’s a daunting road trip because someone is trying to kill Anna again, all because her nosy neighbor, Pretcha, has snapped and tweeted a photo of Fin and Anna leaving her house. Fin, if you will remember, is famous. The tweet builds viewership momentum until Anna’s life is an open book. That’s when people begin to express themselves in violent ways in her presence.

Besides the appeal generated by the quirky stories of why Anna is in disguise, why she is trying to find out about the sinking of the Dana and Leon’s death, and what she is going to do about losing her family, there is Mina’s ear-catching writing. For instance:

I lay in bed savouring the anticipation [of listening to podcast], watching light from the street ripple across the ceiling, listening as the heating kicked on and the grand old dame of a house groaned and cracked her bones.

and about meeting Leon:

Our stories weren’t disguised curriculum vitae. We didn’t tell them as a way of boasting or declaring our relative place in the social order. There was none of that crap. These were stories to entertain, told for the shape of them, for the sake of them, for the love of a tale.

and, finally:

It’s hard to be among vanilla bastards all the time. Normal people can get genuinely upset about a bad haircut, cross words, sick cats. It’s hard not to roll your eyes and say the wrong thing. I often said the wrong thing — wake up, shut up, grow up. These are the wrong things to say when people are sad about some minor cruelty or sentimental incident. But Adam Ross [who worked with Anna and is an addict] was as damaged as me. He didn’t need to be shielded or protected and he knew what not to pick at. A fellow traveller. You could say anything to him. That is rare and very precious.

Plus, there is a ghostly element. When Mina first introduced it, I got "ghost bumps" and turned on all the lights.

As for the title, Amila Fabricase, the yacht's chef, was accused of murder in the yacht deaths and convicted. It is as much for this stranger as for herself that Anna stubbornly traces the fate of the Dana. The dual meaning of "conviction" is a smile from Mina's pen. Also, I laughed when I read the last paragraph. I can't remember the last time I laughed at the end of a mystery book! That, too, comes from Mina's smiling pen.

I really enjoyed this book. Its complicated storyline starts with a podcast, then becomes a podcast and then ends as the actual book you're reading,. I thought that was quite ingenious. The story is a little far fetched at times, but altogether amusing and quite a page turner. The main characters in the book are both interesting, one is an English lady pretending to be Scottish and the other an anorexic musician. A fast read which starts in Scotland, moves to London, a French sea resort, Venice and ends in Paris.

This book is a bit of a departure for Denise Mina. In this standalone thriller, Anna McDonald is shattered by when her supposedly happy marriage ends with her husband running away with her best friend. Needing distraction, Anna listens to a true crime podcast and discovers she had a past acquaintance with one of the victims.

Soon Anna begins her own investigation of the crime accompanied by Fin, a famous troubled musician whose marriage was likewise destroyed when his wife left with Anna's husband. Soon more dead bodies are piling up and Fin and Anna are drawing the attention of some very dangerous people.

I loved the combination of suspense, murder and podcasts and the relationship between Anna and Fin but I found the vendetta against Anna a bit unbelievable.

Denise Mina always writes well and knows how to build up excitement. This book dwells on the lives of the rich more than most of her other books. It feels like a welcome break for the author, a standalone bit of holiday fun in glamorous locations. Fun to read too!

Anna McDonald is a typical housewife—who learns her husband is having an affair. Their marriage is over. Then, while picking up the pieces of her life, she starts listening to a true crime podcast that details the horrible story of an entire family murdered on a yacht. She quickly learns that one of the victims is someone from her past. And, suddenly, nothing is the same again. It’s hard to say much more without giving too much away, but let’s just say, there are a lot of twists and turns in this book, and many surprises. Part thriller, part mystery, part laugh-out-loud caper, this book is unlike anything you’ve read before. Denise Mina’s writing is incredible, and the story will keep you on the edge of your seat. Definitely a fun, exciting, wholly original page-turner!

Well I must say that this book was a puzzle that fit perfectly together. I loved the character of Fin and enjoyed the way he “helps” Anna investigate The Death and The Dana. This was a different type thriller for me that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Many thanks to Mulholland Books and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

3.5! Started out strong, but the final third felt a little messy and convoluted. There were so many interesting developments leading up to various reveals, but the final act occurred and resolved itself too quickly. Interesting concept with the tie-in of the podcast, and I felt that the author did a good job of balancing the various characters and mysterious backstory reveals. I really liked Anna as a main character, especially the bluntness and honesty of her voice. Honestly, I had a good time reading this -- just wished the ending was a bit tidier!

After Anna’s husband leaves her for her best friend, Anna escapes into her world of true crime television and crime podcasts. She’s shocked to discover that the topic of the podcast is actually a man she knows, a man who the podcaster calls out as guilty even though another man has been convicted and jailed. Determined to prove her old acquaintance innocent, she teams up with her best friend/husband stealer’s soon to be ex hubby to solve the crime. A quirky crime novel that’s a little different than Mina’s usual books