Conviction: A Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club Pick

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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. After a peripatetic childhood – her father worked as an engineer across Europe – Mina left school at 16. “I couldn’t read until I was about nine; I was a very late developer and I still can’t spell,” she says. “I don’t think it’s about whether you were a born writer but whether you get a buzz off writing.” Considering Denise is on the cusp of the publication of her seventeenth novel—not to mention graphic novels, plays, short stories, film, TV and radio programs—that’s a lot of sidewalk conversations over her twenty-five-year-long career as a writer.

Just before Anna learned Hamish was leaving her, she had begun listening to a new podcast. She learned the podcast was about the death of Leon Parker, a man she had met while she worked at a luxury resort one summer. Trina Keany, the narrator of the podcast set forth the argument that Amila Fabricase, who had been found guilty of the murders of Leon and his two children, could not have killed them because she was on a plane headed home when the three died. Trina argued that Leon had killed himself and his children. Based on what Anna knew about Leon, Anna did not believe that Leon would have committed that sort of murder. Anna becomes a citizen detective, obsessively investigating the case. Little does she know that her past and present lives are about to collide, and send everything she has worked so hard to achieve into freefall. In August 2020, crime writer Denise Mina published The Less Dead, adding yet another riveting read her already impressive bibliography. Once you read it, you’re sure to become hooked on her style. Born in East Kilbride, Scotland, Mina’s career path first landed her in law school. But after using her student grant money to free up time and resources to write her first book, Mina knew her true calling resided elsewhere. McDonald, Alan (12 October 2017). "The winner of the Gordon Burn Prize 2017 is announced". New Writing North . Retrieved 16 March 2018. Obviously this was 100% farfetched and people who only enjoy realistic tales will find plenty to complain about here. Buuuuuuuuut, if you just enjoy escaping into your stories and love a good game of . . . .

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Denise Mina was born in Glasgow in 1966. Because of her father's job as an Engineer, the family followed the north sea oil boom of the seventies around Europe

Denise Mina: I think it’s partly the second one, because it was totally unregulated and [podcasters] were doing lots of things journalists cannot do. Journalists used to be real Wild West-y, they would break into your house to get evidence and things like that. Podcasters were naming people that they suspected of the actual crime, a journalist would never do that, because they have big corporations behind them. 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. Denise Mina is always brilliant, but Conviction is I think her best yet – joyously dark, comic, loads of fun Alison Flood, Observer, *Books of the Year*I did not guess the reveal. But I did not think that Leon had committed suicide and done his offspring in on purpose at any point in the pod story. An original idea carried out well. Mina’s storytelling is always vivid and exciting, and Anna is a complex, well-rounded figure Jeff Noon, Spectator Denise Mina was born in East Kilbride in 1966. Her father worked as an engineer. Because of his work, the family moved 21 times in 18 years: from Paris to The Hague, London, Scotland and Bergen; she has also professed an affection for Rutherglen, her mother's home town. [4] Mina left school at 16 and worked in a variety of jobs, including as a kitchen porter, a cook and behind a bar. She also worked for a time in a meat-processing factory. In her twenties she worked in auxiliary nursing for geriatric and terminal care patients, before returning to education and earning a law degree from Glasgow University. [5] Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.