Synopsis:
An electrifying new thriller of true crime and deadly secrets from the acclaimed author of The Furies.
Who do you believe?
The Wife
Hannah Catton: bereaved wife, doting mother, clinical psychologist; says she remembers nothing of the night her husband was killed.
The Suspect
Mike Philips: a 19-year-old repeat offender whose clothing was found at the scene, but who has repeatedly protested his innocence over the 10 years since he was imprisoned.
The Journalist
Anna Byers: host of the famous CONVICTION podcast that has seen numerous prison sentences overturned. She believes the wrong man is in jail, do you?
Someone knows more about the murder than they’re telling. It may have been Hannah’s husband who was murdered, but listeners are about to become judge, jury, and executioner on the new season of CONVICTION.
The pacing in this book was slower than I enjoy, with a solid beginning and end but the middle was focused on the slow decline in the main character’s reliability and mental health. Personally I’m a fan of getting right to the point so it wasn’t my favourite take but I stuck with it because I had to know whodunnit!
Hannah is a manipulative person with a fast and loose relationship with the truth, especially with her loved ones, but does that make her a killer? She honestly can’t remember.
As the most unreliable of narrators, you can only judge her based on the tiny nuggets of truth you can pick up from her. She has a hell of a temper, mood swings and isn’t particularly affectionate with her loved ones which makes her suspicious and hard to really like.
The Conviction podcast is exploring the case of Graham Catton’s murder and trying to overturn the supposed wrongful conviction of a young man, the eyes of suspicion are cast upon Hannah and the outpouring of hate from complete strangers based only on what the media tells them is really interesting – people reach out to Hannah’s 16 year old daughter with pure venom, as if that was an acceptable thing to do. Total strangers write horrendous things about her online, wishing her dead. Is that even appropriate to do when you know for certain that someone’s a murderer?
I think I would have enjoyed this book more if it had been more about the podcast than Hannah, with the POV of the journalist, Anna Byers, to mix things up a little bit.
This book covers some darker themes, including domestic violence and gaslighting. I was really pleasantly surprised by the couple of pages at the end of the book with information about domestic abuse and support information, I really respect and appreciate the author for including this.
The Most Sublime 