Wealthy housewife Anna McLean successfully conceals her dark past, until a true-crime podcast and a photo posted on social media send her running across Europe.
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Wealthy housewife Anna McLean successfully conceals her dark past, until a true-crime podcast and a photo posted on social media send her running across Europe.
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Add this copy of Conviction to cart. $8.42, good condition, Sold by BooksRun rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Philadelphia, PA, UNITED STATES, published 2019 by Blackstone Pub.
Add this copy of Conviction to cart. $47.31, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Hialeah, FL, UNITED STATES, published 2019 by Blackstone Pub.
Add this copy of Conviction to cart. $82.29, new condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Hialeah, FL, UNITED STATES, published 2019 by Blackstone Pub.
When Anna's relationship falls apart she retreats into a world of true crime podcasts, but when she recognises one of the victims she realises she may be the key to solving the case.
I wasn't particularly convinced by Conviction (sorry, I had to!) On the one hand, I did really enjoy the idea of a case stemming from a podcast. I am an avid listener to True Crime Podcasts such as Serial, My Favourite Murder and Up and Vanished and really enjoy the idea of ordinary people going out and doing their own research into crimes and possibly even solving them. I liked the format of the Death and the Dana podcast within the book and it really did feel like you were 'listening' to an actual podcast. I sympathised with Anna to a certain extent, withdrawing into her podcast world as her relationship fell apart and the story did hold my interest throughout.
However, I found the whole plot to be both over-the-top and a bit too linear, as odd as that sounds. The idea of so many people following them and the extent that the main 'baddie' would go to catch them and murder people just seemed a bit far-fetched for their motivation if I'm being honest. I think this wasn't helped by Anna's personality which seemed to flip-flop from hysterical rage to calm planning a little too often to emote genuine sympathy for her, particularly as she got on the road with Fin.
The story itself is actually quite straight forward and suffers from being a bit one directional. There's no big twist or super reveal here, the baddie presented from the beginning is the same one all the way through and we don't even really get their motivations presented to us at any point to truly understand why they did what they did.
Overall Conviction is fairly standard crime story - it just needed to be slightly more realistic and with a few more narrative threads to keep my interest, I'm afraid. Thank you to NetGalley, Random House UK - Vintage Publishing & Harvill Secker for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
