Conviction: A Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club Pick

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I’ve been a fan of Ms Mina for a while, but The Long Drop has to be my favourite. The writing is beautiful and more than once I found myself having to pause, just to take in the sheer elegance of the prose. It’s an absolute gem of a book. Abir Mukherjee Then an unexpected visitor arrives on her front stoop, a meddling neighbor intervenes, and life as Anna knows it is well and truly over. The devils of her past are awakened -- and in hot pursuit. Convinced she has no other options, she goes on the run, and in pursuit of the truth, with a washed-up musician at her side and the podcast as her guide. She plainly relishes talking about ideas though, an answer about the inspiration for her podcasting plotline looping into her thoughts on western society’s addiction to narrative. Podcasts are fascinating, she says, because they are as yet unregulated, often run by those outside traditional structures, at a time when people are very suspicious of the filters through which mainstream media operate. “The amount and the quality of stuff out there is amazing, but there are no ethics. It’s cowboy country – people libelling other people, making unfounded allegations, posses are forming … It’s mental.”

A Drunk Woman Looks at the Thistle (2007), inspired by Hugh MacDiarmid's modernist poem, A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle, and first performed by Karen Dunbar. Dark, gritty and chilling, it is steeped in the atmosphere and mores of Glasgow in the 1950s ChoiceCONVICTION the title. Is this a noun with the meaning of having a "belief" that you perceive as truth? Or is it conviction as in the final state/ act of finding a defendant guilty and so sentenced? You tell me! This was not always the case. When Mina was starting out in the late 90s, the crime readership could be said to be acclimatising to female protagonists – such as Val McDermid’s journalist sleuth Lindsay Gordon, first published by the Women’s Press in 1987, Frances Fyfield’s London lawyer Sarah Fortune, or US colossus Sue Grafton’s private investigator Kinsey Millhone. This one has it all: sexual predation, financial skulduggery, reluctant heroism, even the power of social media. The following version of the novel was used to create this study guide: Mina, Denise. Conviction. Little, Brown and Company, June 18, 2019. Kindle.

With sophisticated, ingenious plotting, this is a real read-in-one-go book. If you haven’t yet discovered Denise Mina, you’re in for a treat! Good Housekeeping It is clear from the very start of Denise Mina’s Conviction quite how much fun she – and her readers – are about to have… Mina is such a classy writer and Anna is a darkly brilliant creation Alison Flood, Observer 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. 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. 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.It is a beautifully written book, a masterpiece by the woman who may be Britain’s finest living crime novelist Daily Telegraph Denise Mina (born 21 August 1966) is a Scottish crime writer and playwright. She has written the Garnethill trilogy and another three novels featuring the character Patricia "Paddy" Meehan, a Glasgow journalist. Described as an author of Tartan Noir, she has also written for comic books, including 13 issues of Hellblazer. [1]

The Long Drop is a fascinating, quietly insidious work, unsettling but absorbing Marcel Berlins, The Times I enjoyed the story for the most part, despite my frustration with the main character’s refusal to be honest. And given what I’ve learned so far, i just can’t understand it. I enjoyed the inclusion of a podcast as part of the story, but even that is a little ridiculous. It would be the shortest podcast ever made, and for what purpose? Maybe it gets explained later, which would make it worthwhile. Not a single word is wasted in this beautifully written novel. Unsettling, evocative and staggeringly good, it is possibly Mina's finest achievement" * Daily Express * I believe that it’s always oppositional. But actually when you witness real faith and the comfort and joy it brings people, it’s very humbling. Bram (one of the characters in Confidence with whom Anna and Finn strike an uneasy alliance) does feel really jealous [of those who have faith] and he feels very honored to be in that milieu. And he’s not sure that this is right and that he should be able to just buy [what might be an important relic] in the [open] market.Conviction as a whole put me in mind of the Latin “Post Hoc, Ergo, Propter Hoc” – After, Therefore, Because of it – events and connections all underneath it all. I loved it because it challenged me, I really didn’t know where it was going to end up. A mischievous sense of fun exists alongside a capacity to generate genuine edge-of-your-seat thrills and some thought-provoking moments. You won't have more fun with a book this year" -- Jake Kerridge * Sunday Express * I loved his developing character and built-in frailties; it is Fin that is often the agent whether consciously or not that propels the story to great heights. Nancie Clare: Our world of content is multiplatform in ways that would’ve been unimaginable even 20 years ago. Both Conviction and Confidence, are layered stories taking place on multiple platforms. Both novels are launched by a video, then are told through real-time podcasting and summarized by a book. I find that fascinating. She left school at sixteen and did a number of poorly paid jobs, including working in a meat factory, as a bar maid, kitchen porter and cook.

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’ve never listened to a podcast in my life. But I sure do love reading about them. They’re a really interesting way of getting a story across, giving you the facts and the questions that need answering. The podcast chapters in this book were my favourites to read. But I struggled with the rest of the story. I didn’t particularly like Anna, which felt immensely wrong considering her past and the secrets she’s hiding. Conviction is a wholly different type of novel in the suspense genre. My favorite parts of this book are the interactions between the characters (Anna, Fin and another character named Adam) v. the chapters featuring the actual podcasts (which I think are on the slower side). What I find intriguing is how the author, Denise Mina, intertwines the storylines – which at first, seem quite impossible and then, well, are absolutely seamless. It is the story of wealth and power that can buy silence and if necessary obtain silence in any way necessary. It is told in the first person by a young woman, Anna. who has lived a lie, taken on a new identity and gone off grid to hide from someone willing to silence her forever. Grimly hilarious, emotional and addictive, it ends with a barmy didn’t-see-that-coming denouement UK Press SyndicationDenise Mina: Lots of people say to me: will you write more Scottish history? But Rizzio was part of a series of books about Scottish history by different writers. And I was the first one. I couldn’t just start writing my own series! Ellis, Maureen (13 December 2010). "Face to Face: Denise Mina". The Herald. Glasgow . Retrieved 14 December 2010.