Today’s theme is a mix of thrillers, podcast fiction & #MeToo come-uppance. Be sure to check out the posts on Megan Goldin (The Night Swim) and Julie Clark (The Last Flight) too.
Another fantastic thriller with a true crime podcast theme. It also explores issues of class, power and the harrowing effects of sexual assault on women as well as reinvention and the liberating capacity of finding the right platform in order to tell – and live – the truth.
There are crazy twists and turns in this book, too, and a complicated narrator who isn’t keen on telling the truth, at least at first. The ways in which she ultimately does, setting up a kind of story within a story, is so smart and inventive, and we are breathlessly attached to every twist until we finally get to the bottom of it—with a final shocker I doubt too many people are expecting.
Another great read with a high recommendation!
Find the books:
Denise Mina @Amazon
Conviction @Amazon
CONVICTION
The day Anna McDonald’s quiet, respectable life exploded started off like all the days before: Packing up the kids for school, making breakfast, listening to yet another true crime podcast. Then her husband comes downstairs with an announcement, and Anna is suddenly, shockingly alone.
Reeling, desperate for distraction, Anna returns to the podcast. Other people’s problems are much better than one’s own — a sunken yacht, a murdered family, a hint of international conspiracy. But this case actually is Anna’s problem. She knows one of the victims from an earlier life, a life she’s taken great pains to leave behind. And she is convinced that she knows what really happened.
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 they’re in hot pursuit. Convinced she has no other options, Anna goes on the run, and in pursuit of the truth, with a washed-up musician at her side and the podcast as her guide.
Conviction is “daredevil storytelling at its finest” (NPR’s Fresh Air), a breathtaking thriller from one of the most “superbly talented” writers of our time (Hank Phillippi Ryan, bestselling author of Trust Me).
(This review is part of Read-A-Romance Month. Hope you’ll come back every day to check out my book recommendations. You can find the calendar here. Also check out The Romance of Reading, a Facebook “book club” where we’ll have great authors guest hosting every week.)
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Enjoy!