3.5 STARSAnna 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...

Spoiler alert, but whatever: Why not throw a triple-murder mystery, an anorexic man, a couple of assassins, a gang rape (in reference, not directly), a couple of people with hidden identities, some more murders, and two podcasts, into a single book? Oh and the ending makes no sense. Actually, the entire book makes no sense if you think too much about any of it. I could go into it in detail but I'm really not in the mood. So just know I do NOT recommend this book. At all.

This was too much, way over the top, very messy in my opinion. 😖 One homicide mystery would be plenty, let’s throw in like 5 other random mysteries on top of that. 😳 As one more random thing got thrown on top, I kept thinking of Jim Gaffigan joking that he was drowning in a pool and someone handed him another baby.... yep.... this book is like having 5 kids. 🤷🏼‍♀️

A worthy mystery, well written and structured. Anna's husband leaves her, and the upheaval accidentally outs her as a woman who disappeared ten years ago. Anna's been hiding from a rich bitch who tried to have Anna killed, and now she has to go on the run again. She learns a man she met years ago died in a yacht sinking, shortly after he married the same black-widow pursuing Anna. Assisted by an anorexic former pop-star, she digs for proof the man she knew didn't kill himself, while staying one

AVOID, AVOID, AVOID! Don't let the 5 star reviews fool you.

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

Meh. Read this because it’s Reese’s Book Club pick. I must say, her picks are getting worse and worse. I long for the choices that harken back to Little Fires Everywhere, The Last Mrs. Parrish, and Where the Crawdads Sing.

Anna McDonald settles down early one morning with a coffee and a podcast and realises that she has met the man at the centre of the unfolding drama. Leon Parker and his two children died on board the yacht Dana which has been the subject of much speculation over the years. This revelation unsettles Anna but things get progressively worse for her shortly after starting to listen to the podcast, unravelling the comfortable life she has enjoyed over the last few years. The Dana Mystery is connected...

Seeking a distraction the day that husband Hamish announces that he is leaving for best friend, Anna finds comfort in a true crime podcast only to discover that the case that the series is covering involves someone from her past.As the infamous Dana yacht had already a checked history of hauntings and tragedy, so the sinking of the vessel felt like another murderous mystery to solve.Anna takes it upon herself to investigate the real truth.The idea of introducing most of the initial plot through

This is one of the worst books I’ve read in a really long time. Forgive misspelling of names, I listened to the audio. I have three major issues with it: 1. It tries to tackle way too much: it makes light of anorexia and glosses over sexual assault against the backdrop of a weird and unrealistic vigilante justice plot. I found that not nearly enough time and sensitivity was devoted to tackling both Sophie’s past and Fins anorexia in a meaningful way, making the former seem like an (upsetting) ef...

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

Oh dear, my very first read of the year and it’s unfortunately a 2 star read. How disappointing. I don’t have much positive to say about this one. For that reason, I’m not going to go into a long detailed review focusing on everything that I didn’t like, but I obviously I intend to make a few high level comments.Quite simply, this one wasn’t for me. I found the plot totally over the top and highly unlikely in a number of respects. The things that happened in this book, right from the beginning,

I have, so far, read two books by Denise Mina, and a short story, all of which I have loved; which leads me to the conclusion that I really need to go back and rediscover her earlier work and, in particular, her crime series. Both of the novels I have read, “The Long Drop,” and this, “Conviction,” have been stand alone books and both have been excellent, in different ways. Anna McDonald is having marriage counselling, but it does not seem to be working, as when we meet her, husband Hamish heads

I was sucked into this story from the beginning. This is just the second book that I have read by the author but I will definitely read more. The book is set partly in Glasgow. Anna McDonald's husband has just left her for her best friend and he has taken their children with him. Anna loves to listen to true crime podcasts. Apart from Glasgow, we also travel to Fort William and lle de Re in France. Anna's life is complex, I don't want to say more than that as it would contain spoilers. This is a...

If there is only one crime thriller book you read this year, make sure it is this one from the award winning Scottish writer, Denise Mina. This is a markedly different read from her previous works, it has a lightness of touch, is darkly humorous, relevant in our contemporary world of #MeToo, and utterly riveting. The well to do Anna McDonald is married to lawyer, Hamish, and has two young daughters, Jess and Lizzie. Anna is a true crime podcast obsessive, her latest one is entitled Death and the...

What a ride! This is that rare book where the author does such an expert job describing & explaining these characters, that you find yourself completely invested. Even if you don't agree with someone you can empathize & wholly understand because after all, they're only people. Anna McDonald is awesome. She is a survivior. She's also the fiercest, most determined women I've read about in a while.. & to top it all off, she's just so heartbreakingly normal. Her husband & best friend rip the rug out...

Colorful inside and out, Conviction (terrible title) tells of a woman, Anna, on the brink of a nervous break down. She decides to figure out what happened to an old friend who died under suspicious circumstances in a boating tragedy. Anna, desperately needs distraction from the wreck of her own life. She takes along her neighbor Fin on her journey who is also coming apart for some of the same reasons as Anna.Both Anna and Fin are broken people, but Anna is much more worldly wise and savvy than F...

I do not believe in spirit possession but you know what, if someone were to tell me that in the middle of writing this book, the author, for whatever reason, got possessed by some otherworldly entity and wrote the rest of the book, I would have totally consider that possibility. Because that would have at least explained how a book that has started so well and completely unputdownable for the entire first half has managed to missed every opportunity to deliver even a tiny bit of satisfying concl...

Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/By the time my turn came around at the library for Conviction I had no recollection of where I had even heard of it. Then I saw it was part of the “Hello Sunshine” book club and basically when it comes to Reese Witherspoon . . . . Okay, maybe not anything, but she does pretty decent at picking books I like.Anna is your typical housewife who enjoys listening to podcasts/escaping into a book along with a nice cup of Joe after getting...

I’m really frustrated that i can’t finish this book but there are just too many problems with it for me to continue. My biggest problem is that it is not well edited or proofread. There are several instances where words are missing from sentences or like a whole page where she switches “bies” to “beis.” But this last issue may even be a spoiler, on page 209. Throughout the book I’ve had just enough trouble keeping track of things that i thought maybe i just wasn’t paying enough attention. But th...