Conviction by Denise Mina

This was one of my favorite 2019 reads, so I thought I would bring it to your attention. Try if you can to savor this read-I had a hard time not reading it cover to cover in one sitting! This compelling read begins with the main character, Anna McLean drinking coffee and listening to her guilty pleasure, true crime podcasts. The podcast of the day “Death and the Dana”, is the story of an explosion on a yacht that killed a father, Leon Parker, and his two young adult children. The yacht’s chef, who had recently quit, was convicted of planting the explosives. However, there were many loose ends about the case that bothered Anna, not the least of which, was that in another life, when she was known by another name, Anna was friends with the yacht’s owner, Leon Parker. On the heels of these disturbing memories from long hidden past, Anna answers her door to find her best friend Estelle standing there dressed not for yoga, but for travel-ready to run off with Anna’s husband with whom she’s been having an affair. At this this point the story takes off and doesn’t let up until the last word.

You might think I have told you too much of the plot in the paragraph above, but this is not the case. I have only scratched the surface of a novel that somehow defies one genre, instead jumps from one to another into a fabulous feat of storytelling. As the story roams from Scotland to England to Italy, along the way the reader learns what really happened on the Dana (the yacht), who Anna really is and whom she’s been hiding from all these years. This was my guilty pleasure-maybe it will be yours!