The author of The Long Drop introduces readers to Anna McDonald, who distracts herself from her broken marriage with a true-crime podcast that turns out to profile a victim Anna knew years ago. With the devils of her past awakened, Anna decides to go on the run in pursuit of the truth.
Perhaps it’s not even fair to compare Mina’s previous novels to Conviction because this latest is so different, it seems to have been written by someone else—some glorious genetically engineered composite of Mina herself along with Daphne du Maurier...fellow Scot Helen MacInnes...and, especially toward the end, Lisa Scottoline...Conviction is spectacular; if you, dear reader, can sanely spread your enjoyment of it out over, say, a week, you’re a more disciplined consumer of suspense fiction than I am. I inhaled this novel in two extended sittings in one day ... As much as it is a weird suspense tale in which both ghosts and bullets fly through the air, Conviction is a giddy celebration of the art of storytelling itself ... it’s a testament to Mina’s considerable storytelling gifts that by the end of Conviction, I wanted to go right back to the beginning and read all those intertwined tales all over again.
Denise Mina’s work is increasingly intriguing ... Her newest novel might be described as a fictional non-fiction. It is a thriller that often evokes an almost Hitchcock-like air of paranoia, doubt, double identities, sexual frisson ... a novel which...is fascinated with story above all else ... Conviction is one of those rare and perfect titles, meaning both a belief profoundly held and to have been found guilty. The genius of the novel is that it reiterates that old phrase that a wise man once said—'the truth will set you free'—and it does so via fiction.
In Scottish author Denise Mina’s Conviction...Anna McDonald of Glasgow has gone to great lengths to keep her shocking back story secret... Ms. Mina has long been an outstanding writer, but in Conviction she combines all her gifts—for suspense, humor, menace, sentiment—in spectacular fashion.
