I’ve read with enjoyment several prior novels by Denise Mina. This one was recommended by someone in a mystery book group and it’s a stand alone novel. 

*******
Conviction
by Denise Mina
2018/
Read by Cathleen McCarron 9h/46m
Rating:  A / crime thriller 
*******

Conviction starts slow and then gets convoluted with back story and then turns into a page-turning thriller while the reader tries to unwind the coils of threads.  Generally happy, the young, married- with-children Anna McLean is sitting in the kitchen of her suburban Glasgow home.  She’s listening to her favorite true crime podcast with her morning coffee when she’s startled plum out of her wits when she realizes that this time, with this crime, she knows the people involved!  OMG!   (But what does that mean to the reader?  –  Good questions – we read to find out exactly.) 

It seems that several years prior a luxury yacht exploded in a Scottish bay.  On it were Leon Parker and his two teenage children and no one else – no staff, nothing.  The absent chef was convicted but that’s only 10% of the story because #1 – he didn’t do it and #2 -who is Anna McLean anyway, to be remembering all this and apparently running away from her own past involving this crime?   
And! In Anna’s present, just that very morning,  her husband is leaving her for the neighbor lady, Anna’s best friend.  To make matters worse the neighbor lady’s husband has come over to Anna’s house.  Which would be bad enough except that Anna has come unwound by the realization that someone is going to recognize her and come after her due to the explosion she was in some way a part of. The two leave town together.  

And the rest of the book is a whirlwind chase with building tension and danger.  Mina puts her superb wordsmithery and wry humor on display just right.   Enjoy!