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 to a traumatic event in Anna’s past and she sets off on a dangerous journey to uncover both what happened on the Dana but also to lay the terrifying ghosts to rest. At the centre of both stories is super rich Gretchen Teigler who has the resources to make Anna’s life very difficult. The story is told from Anna’s perspective with the addition of podcasts.

The story is extremely well written, it’s fast paced and rarely lets up for a minute, the plot is clever and grips your attention from start to finish. The settings add to the atmosphere - we travel up the west and east coasts of Scotland to Skibo Castle near Dornoch ( check it out, its stunning and where Madonna married Guy Ritchie!) we then travel to France and the Ile de Re, then to Venice and back to France, so you get a bit of a European tour thrown into the bargain! The characters are really good, they are all well portrayed both the ones you can like and the ones you don’t. Anna is brilliant, I love her black humour and quick wit, she’s far from passive, she’s resourceful and very brave. There are some breathtaking moments throughout and very powerful images, particularly those of a diver going down to the wreck of the Dana. That is stunning. The plot takes numerous twists and turns which keeps you guessing, it’s an exciting journey for the truth as Anna confronts some dangerous and ruthless people. The podcast element is a really good feature of the storyline and leads to an excellent conclusion.

Overall, I think this is my favourite Denise Mina book so far. It’s clever and keeps you invested and guessing throughout.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House, Vintage Publishing for the copy.

I found this cra-cra crazy! Could Mina have crammed any more plot into these pages? Hidden identities, an on-the-run housewife with an anorexic pop star turning detectives, a secretive rich woman with a Nazi inheritance, thugs with gulag stories, an imprisoned baker with a brain tumour, a murdered family on a ghost ship, a killer who's had facial reconstruction to look like someone else, a past rape and trial, contract killers foiled by a chip pan... seriously, I'm not making it up and there's more I haven't even mentioned! Anna has a strong and characterful voice but too often I was reminded of Scooby Doo - and what even happened at the end?!

Just like every day, Anna McDonald gets up in the morning and turns on a podcast to relax before the usual commotion of her family starts. This morning, however, will be completely different. First, she learns in a true crime podcast that her former friend Leon has been murdered on a boat off the French coast, then, her husband tells her that he’s going to run away with her best friend Estelle taking their two girls with them. When Estelle’s husband Fin Cohen, a famous musician, turns up and a photo of the two of them goes viral, her carefully built life crumbles and falls. It will not be long before someone will recognise her, before those people that she has hidden from for years will finally find her, before it all will start again. She needs to run away again, but before, together with Fin, she will find out what happened to Leon and if the person she supposes behind it all is still looking for her.

Sometimes you start a novel, expecting it to be entertaining and gripping, but then you are literally dragged into it and cannot stop reading. That’s what happened to me with “Conviction”, once I began reading, I was spellbound and fascinated and absolutely wanted to know what all this was about. Due to Denise Mina’s clever foreshadowing and the high pace of the plot, you don’t get a second to relax and breathe deeply, as the protagonist runs, you are tagged along and eagerly follow.

Denise Mina does not waste any time, the story starts like a bull at the gate and before you are even the slightest oriented, you are already in the middle of the mess that Anna is experiencing. Choosing a first person narrator was some clever decision as thus, we only get her perspective, only what she wants to share and which leaves the reader in the dark for quite some time. At first, she seems to be totally overreacting until you realise that there is much more behind it all. The good and dutiful housewife obvious is entangled in some unbelievably big conspiracy with powerful people far beyond any law enforcement.

A proper page-turner with unexpected twists and turns which also has some witty and comical bits and pieces to offer.