Conviction by Denise Mina #Conviction #20BooksOfSummer #BookReview #Books #ProvidedForReview

From ‘the woman who may be Britain’s finest living crime novelist’ (Daily Telegraph), Conviction stars a strong female protagonist who is obsessed by true-crime podcasts and decides, one day, to investigate one of the unsolved crimes herself.

It’s just a normal morning for Anna McDonald. Gym kits, packed lunches, getting everyone up and ready. Until she opens the front door to her best friend, Estelle. Anna turns to see her own husband at the top of the stairs, suitcase in hand. They’re leaving together and they’re taking Anna’s two daughters with them.

Left alone in the big, dark house, Anna can’t think, she can’t take it in. With her safe, predictable world shattered, she distracts herself with a story: a true-crime podcast. There’s a sunken yacht in the Mediterranean, multiple murders and a hint of power and corruption. Then Anna realises she knew one of the victims in another life. She is convinced she knows what happened. Her past, so carefully hidden until now, will no longer stay silent.

This is a murder she can’t ignore, and she throws herself into investigating the case. But little does she know, her past and present lives are about to collide, sending everything she has worked so hard to achieve into freefall.

Conviction is the compelling and unique new thriller from multiple award-winner and author of THE LONG DROP, Denise Mina.

Denise Mina has been an author I have wanted to try for a while now. In fact, quite a long while now – far too many books and never enough time. As well as reading lots of very positive things about her books in general, she is also Scottish. And I do try and support my fellow Scots whenever possible. So, when Conviction popped up on NetGalley I was delighted to be approved for an eARC. Plus, that cover!

I had very little idea what to expect when I first picked up Conviction, I don’t know if I missed the hype or if it was completely off my radar, but I went into the book cold, I didn’t even properly read the book blurb until I was a good 20% or so in.

Conviction starts with a rather memorable opening. It sets itself up as being a story within a story. Personally, I thought it had a bit of an odd structure. It was written as a book – let me explain before you roll your eyes at me and say yes, yes, it is a book…duh! But it starts off with the main character telling us she’s written a book of her recent experiences and here it is.  

A bit different, yes?

But I kind of felt that the structure took all the tension and suspense out of the story. It had already been written by the main character, so we knew she was fine, she had lived to tell the tale so to speak. I just found it a little odd at points. I’m not sure that the story within a story added anything to the plot. Or I did’t quite get it, which is entirely plausible.

I loved the whole podcast story arc that was central to the plot, I found it fascinating. I’ve only just recently gotten into podcasts and now I seem to find them being discussed and written about everywhere, which is fantastic. Podcasts rule!

I loved the settings for this book, always great to see Scotland feature but it really was an around the world trip. I absolutely believe that Conviction would make the basis of an amazing blockbuster movie, it had that feel to it when I was reading. You know the way some books do? It’s not just me, is it?

I am quite keen on reading more by Denise Mina because I loved a lot of Conviction, but I didn’t quite love the novel. For me it was good, but just missed out on being great. I would still happily recommend it thou because it was an entertaining blockbuster of a book that kept me reading until all was finally revealed, and I didn’t guess the majority of all the twists and turns. The writing was also great. Really great.

I must go and find some other bloggers reviews of this one. I was left with mostly positive, but maybe a bit mixed feelings about conviction.

I received a copy of Conviction by Denise Mina from the publisher via NetGalley – Thank you!