There is no greater pleasure (in my opinion) than a literary novel that is also a mystery. Denise Mina is a master of this genre. The complex plot keeps the reader focused and Mina's signature wit is ever-present, as are the well drawn characters. This is a novel not to be missed!

A disappointing read. I felt the narrator device didn’t work and while I kept plugging along I almost didn’t finish the book. The best part of the book was the stylistic device used to end the novel. I did not see the ending coming.

The way this one started, I thought it was going to be a domestic thriller, but it wasn’t. Instead, Mina kept taking me on a ride full of turns I wasn’t expecting. This starts with a wife and mother, Anna, whose husband leaves her for her best friend. And it gets worse: so that the kids settle into the change, and Anna gets her life together, he takes the kids with the best friend on a trip, leaving Anna to her own devices. The thing is, Anna has a past no one knows about, and her way of coping with things is to escape into books and podcasts. She tries to escape her current situation by listening to a true crime podcast—which we get to read as she’s listening to it—but she gets way more than an escape. Someone she knew is the subject. He’s actually accused of the crime by the podcast host, even though someone else has been tried. This leads Anna (and her best friend’s famous, soon-to-be ex-husband) on a wild adventure of trying to solve the mystery themselves–and soon trying to stay alive. If you like mysteries, true crime podcasts, and the past-is-coming-to-get-you novels pick this one up. And a fellow Rioter was listening to the audiobook and mentioned it was great—Scottish narrator!

3.5 STARS

Anna McDonald, is an ordinary wife, mom, and pod-cast junkie. One day her life gets turned upside-down when her latest episode titled "Death and the Dana" hits a little too close to home.

Anna decides to investigate the unsolved crime herself. The crime involves a sunken yacht in the Mediterranean and multiple murders and a name that Anna recognizes. Someone from her past. What an interesting angle!

I was immersed in the first half of the book. The suspense and the yacht mystery were both strange and intriguing.  As her search for the truth expands, her past starts to surface and things get complex. This is where I felt the story became somewhat bogged down by "trying to hard".  There were so many different story lines emerging that I was losing interest (sadly).  I wasn't able stay fully engaged during the second half.

There is a crime, some unsavory characters, and a haunted ship. I do feel like many would enjoy this type of double mystery, although it did fall a bit short for me.

Conviction is a book that sends you happily hunting down an author’s backlist. Mina writes a smart and funny heroine. Anna’s adventures started long before this book opens, and as the layers of her past are peeled back, I got more and more invested in figuring out what happened then and how the past has created her present. Finn is a sidekick with his own complications. Anna and Finn head out on a road trip to lay Anna’s past to rest, and the further they get form their formerly happy suburban lives, the more twisted the tale becomes.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

The eternal companions of all clever women are mistrust and scorn."

Anna McDonald has two daughters with her lawyer partner, Hamish. On the morning her life implodes, she's listening to a true crime podcast and is quite surprised that she knows one of the people featured in the story. "A sunken yacht, a murdered family on board, a secret still unsolved..."
When Hamish walks out of their home with Anna's best friend and her two daughters, Anna briefly considers suicide. A knock on the door rouses her from her shock and stupor. And thus begins the quest as Anna reclaims her life and tackles the mystery of the DANA. NO SPOILERS

How can it be that I've read thousands of books but never a title by Denise Mina?! I intend to rectify that omission because I really enjoyed the author's writing style. This was fast-paced and had an unusual style -- I especially enjoyed the podcast pieces -- with an engaging and deeply flawed female protagonist in Anna (Sophie Bukaran) and her equally messed up sidekick, Findlay Cohen. Their adventure was pure fun and I raced through the pages trying to figure out how the story would end. Their travels take them across Europe in cars, trains, and planes. I loved the descriptions of the places they visited in their efforts to quiet Anna's demons.

Thank you to NetGalley and Mulholland Books for this e-book ARC to read and review.

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.

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.

One Of The Best Final Lines I've Ever Read! The book itself started a bit slow, but by around 15-20% in or so builds to where you just want to finish the book in one sitting. Which is nearly what I did, having started the day at 12% into the book, fought through continually trying to fall asleep from sheer exhaustion, and now sitting here writing this review having finished the tale a couple hours later. Great tale with many lies buried within lies buried within lies, and does a good job of holding off a final reveal until the last few pages. Very much recommended.

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.

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.

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/

Ready for summer reading?
May 23, 2019
What are you looking forward to reading this summer? There are so many great books coming out. Here in the Boston area alone, we’ll be celebrating Hallie Ephron’s Careful What You Wish For, (Aug. 6), Hank Phillippi Ryan’s The Murder List(Aug. 20), Julia Henry‘s Tilling the Truth and Edwin Hill‘s The Missing Ones (both Aug. 27). On the cozy side, former Sisters in Crime president Leslie Budewitz has her Chai Another Day coming out June 11, and many others are due soon too. But recently I was asked by an editor to compile a list of summer mysteries and in my desperate attempt to pull together books that weren’t by friends or that haven’t been recently profiled on my own blog, I came up with the following. (Then I found out I had misread the assignment – he wanted books that were already out! Oops!). Anyway, here’s a small sampling of what I’m looking forward to, with an eye to every taste. Please let me know what you’re looking forward to – we’ve got time, at last, to indulge!
1. “One Small Sacrifice,” Hilary Davidson (out June 1)
Author of the Anthony award-winning Lily Moore series launches a new police procedural series with NYPD detective Sheryn Sterling unraveling a complicated possible murder.
2. “Conviction,” Denise Mina, (June 18)
Newly single Anna McDonald tunes into a true-crime podcast for distraction only to realize that she knows what really happened – and she’s involved – in the latest grim psychological suspense from a Scottish master of the genre.
3. “Big Sky, ” Kate Atkinson (June 25)

After an eight-year hiatus, Yorkshire ex-cop turned private investigator Jackson Brodie (with dog) surfaces in a quiet seaside village where a routine domestic case turns into something darker.
4. “Paranoid,” Lisa Jackson, (June 25)
Decades after Rachel Gatson accidentally killed her half-brother, her high school reunion – and a string of new murders – make her doubt her sanity in this bestseller’s latest psychological suspense.

5. “A Lady’s Guide to Gossip and Murder,” Dianne Freeman (June 26) The follow-up to the series’ multiple award-winning debut, this frothy, fun historical cozy once again has the American-born Countess of Harleigh solving a murder in Victorian London’s high society.
6. “The Paper Bark Tree Mystery,” Ovidia Yu (June 27)
The steamy Singaporean summer of 1937 smolders when private detective Su Lin’s ex-boss is murdered in a case involving diamonds, race, and political unrest in this third evocative Crown Colony mystery.
7. “The Whisper Man,” Alex North (June 27)
A widowed father and his young son move into a strange house in a town haunted by the memory of a serial killer in this truly creepy debut thriller.
8. “The Chain,” Adrian McKinty (July 9)
To ransom her kidnapped daughter, a mother must kidnap another child, whose parents must then do the same, in this fast-paced, nightmarish thriller from the award-winning suspense author.
9. “Lady in the Lake,” Laura Lippman (July 23)
Having bolted from a stale marriage in 1966 Baltimore, Maddie Schwarz has transitioned from housewife to crusading journalist, heedlessly seeking the truth about a missing woman in this New York Times-bestselling author’s latest standalone.
10. “The Hounds of Justice,” Claire O’Dell (July 30)
In O’Dell’s second strikingly engaging dystopian Sherlock Holmes pastiche, Dr. Janet Watson once again joins covert agent (and fellow queer black woman) Sara Holmes in infiltrating an extremist group.
11. “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead,” Olga Tokarczuk, (Aug. 13)
This Man Booker International Award finalist veers from straight mystery into fantasy as Janina, the local crank in a Polish resort town, takes a break from astrology to investigate a murder.
12. “The Swallows,” Lisa Lutz, (Aug. 13)
Best known for the humorous Spellman Files books, Lutz follows up her thriller “The Passenger” by going very dark with this tale of revenge and secrets at a New England prep school.
13. “Play With Fire,” William Shaw (Aug. 13)
In his fourth series outing, Detective Sergeant Cathal Breen can’t get into the swing of 1969 London, but with his pregnant partner Helen Tozer’s help he tackles the murder of a high-society call girl.
14. “Thirteen,” Steve Cavanaugh (Aug. 13)
Conman-turned-defense attorney Eddie Flynn uses the crooked system against itself, but he’s out manipulated when he’s brought into a Hollywood star’s murder trial in this legal thriller.
15. “The Long Call, ” Anne Cleeves (Sept. 3) With her usual stunningly deft prose, Scottish master Cleeves (“Vera” and “Shetland”) debuts Detective Matthew Venn, who returns to the North Devon evangelical community he once fled when a body washes up on the beach.

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.

3.5 Stars* (rounded down).

Not your average thriller!

A woman obsessed with podcasts starts investigating a man she once knew who is the star of one. Talk about an intriguing premise!

Anna McDonald is a married woman who believes she is happily married when her husband takes off with her best friend and her children. With her life left in tatters, she starts investigating a man whose family is featured on a podcast. All were murdered at sea, on the Dana, a sunken yacht in the Bay of Biscay. The podcast accuses many and that crime is shrouded in secrecy and mayhem. The Dana had a history. Cursed they said.

Soon Anna takes off on a journey trying to uncover mystery of the “Death and the Dana.” Fin Cohen, her former best friend’s jilted ex-husband, goes along for the ride. What transpires between the two is quite humorous. Fin is a complete hoot and is a character you will be sure to love.

Conviction is a wholly different type of novel in the suspense genre. My favorite parts of this book are the interactions between the characters (Anna, Fin and another character named Adam) v. the chapters featuring the actual podcasts (which I think are on the slower side). What I find intriguing is how the author, Denise Mina, intertwines the storylines – which at first, seem quite impossible and then, well, are absolutely seamless.

If you are looking for an interesting take on a thriller, all I can say is, this is it!

This was a buddy read with Kaceey! Glad we shared in this read together.

Thank you to NetGalley, Mulholland Books and Denise Mina for an arc of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Published on NetGalley and Goodreads on 5.15.19.
Will be published on Amazon on 6.18.19

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.

Being a fan of most of Denise Mina’s other novels, I jumped at the chance to read CONVICTION, her latest. Married to a successful Glasgow attorney, living with him and her two little girls in his 1869 ancestral home, the day Anna’s life explodes started well, but deteriorates as she relaxes with a new true-crime podcast and realizes that, in another life, she knew one of the passengers whose luxury yacht explodes and sinks, killing all 3 (?) passengers. Her family life then explodes as well, sending her on the run with her anorexic rock-star neighbor, Fin Cohen. Anna and Fin then become their own true-crime podcast, all the while trying to solve the yacht’s fate and evading the evil and omnipresent Gretchen Teigler.

As much as loved Denise Mina's previous books, this one, I felt, missed the mark. I found it a jumbled phantasmagoria of unbelievable feminist mumbo-jumbo. This was certainly not what I have come to expect from this talented writer.