I hadn't realized that this was the second in the series. I nearly gave up as I felt I had been dropped in half way through. I persevered and started to enjoy it. Judging from the ending I assume another will follow. The story seemed to jump about and I had no idea where it was going. Despite that I did enjoy it.

Confidence is apparently the second book in a series featuring crime bloggers, Anna and Fin, They are approached to investigate the disappearance of a young urban explorer, Lisa Lee, from her home in the Scottish borders. Lisa's last urban exploration video had featured an abandoned chateau in France where she had stumbled on a secret room and a priceless silver casket that apparently contained proof of Christ.

Anna and Fin leave the holiday from Hell (actually the lighthouse at the Mull of Galloway) and find themselves press-ganged into accepting the case. What follows is a tale of intrigue and betrayal playing out across Scotland, Italy and France with a backdrop of immense wealth, fine art, private planes and swanky hotels.

The plot feels a lot like I imagine the Da Vinci Code would be, if I could lower myself far enough to actually read it. Sinister bishops, grand conspiracies and all the bad people in the world converging on the single quest. It starts out being intriguing but it ends up being confusing.

The main characters, similarly, start out to seem complex but after a while, they seem to be stereotypes. They serve a purpose, but have little existence outwith the plot itself. It is almost as though they were created for the specific purpose of chasing the casket. And where they do have a backstory, it does not cohere into the main story. The culmination, for example, is Anna's daughter realising that she is half Kazakh. I mean, why? Is that really the end note for a story in which the daughter had a walk-on part and Kazakhstan had nary a mention?

All of this should add up to making a rather bad book. But somehow the writing is lively enough, humorous enough, to keep the reader going. I am a fan of snippets of websites, emails and such-like. I like the trope of the dossier of found documents that combine to tell a story. And that's what Denise Mina delivers in Confidence. There is a social media out there which offers characters some degree of security in alerting the world to their peril, but also allows them to be surveilled. I like the variety it gives to the point of view and tone of voice.

So my take on this is that Confidence is not a masterpiece, but it does entertain - which is pretty much what it set out to do, Three and a half stars rounded to a generous four.

Denise Mina is back with the second in her new ‘C-series’, featuring Anna and Fin. 2019’s Conviction introduced us to podcast fanatic Anna McDonald and rock star Fin Cohen as their lives were turned upside down by failed marriages and they embarked on a non-romantic adventure together, investigating the mysterious deaths of a father and his two daughters.

In Confidence the dust has settled in Anna and Fin’s personal lives and they now host their own highly popular crime podcast. Anna’s husband, Hamish, and Estelle, Finn’s ex-wife, are together with a baby of their own. In an attempt to get this complex, blended family together and welcome Finn’s new girlfriend, Sofia, Anna organises a seaside holiday. Full review on my blog - https://westwordsreviews.wordpress.com/2022/07/25/confidence-denise-mina/ and Crime Fiction Lover.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first in this series, Conviction, and have liked/loved several other Denise Mina novels. So it's with regret that I'm abandoning this one at the halfway point, but also with relief. It doesn't seem to me like a Mina novel at all. it has none of her usual insightfulness, occasional humour, brilliant characterisation.

The premise is interesting - an urban explorer goes missing shortly after posting a YouTube video of a French chateau she and two companions had explored. Then a valuable and famous casket seen on the video turns up in an auction house. The casket is rumoured to contain proof of the resurrection of Christ. So far, so good, if a bit Dan Brown-esque. But then we go on an interminable journey, first by car and then by plane, which literally takes up the entire first half of the book and yet by that stage only gets us from the south west coast of Scotland to Glasgow Airport and then halfway to Rome. It would actually take less time to make that journey than it has taken me to read about it. Along the way, Anna and Fin read emails and articles, talk to people on FaceTime, etc., but mostly we get tedious details of everything they eat, where they sit, the décor of the plane and just about anything else you can think of. The odd thing is it's quite short for a contemporary thriller, and yet feels overstuffed with extraneous trivia. The story is static - I feel I've learned nothing to move it forward for an age. Also, Anna and Fin have joined up with a cartoon villain and his cartoon son, who have endless fights that involve them swearing at each other a lot. None of it is credible or convincing, and I've lost all interest in finding out about the missing girl or the casket. In this year of abandoned new releases, another one bites the dust...

The sequel to Denise Mina's Conviction, Confidence features the return of true crime podcasters, Anna McDonald and her partner, Fin Cohen. Even though I haven't read Conviction, it doesn't trouble me to dive in mid-series, or where I haven’t read previous instalments although there is always that risk that you could think you are missing out. This one works as an individual read, at least it did for me.

The book begins with Anna and Fin and their families of exes, new partners and children of various couples on a holiday in a lighthouse, where they are stuck with each other during a bad storm. Denise Mina writes about this well, with tensions and relationships very convincingly drawn. The Scottish location allows for a creepy atmosphere especially as it's coupled with the wild weather. When Lisa Lee, who is part of UrbEx, disappears after posting a YouTube film of herself and three others exploring an abandoned French ('shat-oo/ shat-oh') chateau, Anna and Fin start looking for her. There's also the issue of a priceless Roman silver casket with sinister history of death attached to it, listed for sale at a Paris auction house.

I was rather taken with this wild race of a story and I thoroughly enjoyed my lively time travelling around several countries, including Scotland, France and Italy. An action-packed very highly recommended tale.

I received a complimentary copy of this novel from Harvill Secker via NetGalley at my request and this review is my own unbiased opinion.

This book didn’t grab me at all. Mainly I think it was because I haven’t read the first in this series and I had no idea at times what was going on. The story was good but it just didn’t appeal to me at all. My thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review.

Description 🔖

Lisa Lee is a young woman who goes missing from a Scottish seaside town. The internet is in a bit of a frenzy over her story, so Anna and Fin find themselves getting involved in the hunt for her.

They learn that Lisa may not be the quiet, victim that her father thinks she is. Before Lisa went missing, she was filming for her failed YouTube channel. She had joined other UrbExers on a break in to a mansion in France during which they stumbled upon a priceless Roman silver casket. Only one day after Lisa goes missing, the casket is listed in an online auction with a reserve price of fifty million euro.

Anna and Fin find themselves on a chase across Europe, getting themselves mixed up with art smugglers and billionaire con artists.

General Thoughts 🤔

I am sad that I have to say that me and this book didn’t hit it off. The reason I’m so disappointed is that I really enjoyed the first book in this series; Conviction and so I was excited to catch up with what Anna and Fin got up to next. What I didn’t like so much about Confidence was that I didn’t feel like I was on an investigation with Anna and Fin. So much of the first book was built around their characters that I had grown to like them both but during this book, I didn’t feel like they were even there.

I loved Anna’s narration in the previous book. I thought she was witty and sharp but vulnerable and relatable. None of that seemed to come through in this book. She was a little bit, dare I say it, boring and dull. It started promising with the whole family being away in the lighthouse, but it tailed off as soon as the podcast plot started to kick in.

I also wasn’t crazy about the mystery/crime that Anna and Fin were recording their podcast about. I found it difficult to follow and most of the time, I was confused about who was who. The ending felt a little over-dramatic when considering everything that had come before it.

Conclusion & Scoring 🎖

This isn’t my usual review format, but honestly, I don’t really know what else to say about this book because it didn’t really make me feel a hell of a lot. If there was another Anna and Fin book, I think I’d give it a go in the hope that this second book was a one off. However unfortunately, I couldn’t recommend Confidence. Read Conviction and let that magic stay with you.

I loved Conviction and was happy to catch up with Anna and Fin. Even if I enjoyed the story and appreciated the style of writing/storytelling I found it less gripping than Conviction.
I assume that the mix of religious fanatics/artefacts/family issues didn't work at best and, even if entertaining, it was a bit confusing at time.
Even if I don't recommend it as stand alone it's an entertaining book.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

When a woman disappears from a Scottish town. Anna and Fin use it as an excuse to escape their blended family holiday from hell. They end up in a complicated storyline travelling around Europe. The plot is jam paced and moves quickly so you need to keep up. Lots of intrigue along the way. The second book in the series but can be read as a standalone.

I absolutely loved Conviction, the first in the Anna and Fin series and could not wait to get stuck into the sequel, Confidence. It does not disappoint.

The sense of an author having fun, of confidently enjoying spinning a fabulous storyline persists in Confidence and makes for a really pacy and hugely enjoyable read.

Anna McDonald and Fin Cohen are podcasters and in this story they become captivated by a video filmed by vlogger, Lisa Lee, who is filming in an old, abandoned French chateau alongside two Belgian urban explorers. She appears to discover an important silver relic; a box which they discover, is said to contain proof of the resurrection. But now she has disappeared. Lisa, from North Berwick, is known to Anna and Fin and so, relishing the opportunity to do a bit of abandoning themselves, they leave their respective bits of extended family (they’re all on a terrible holiday together) and go in search of the missing woman.

Lisa may be missing, but the silver box is not. It is up for auction in Paris and is attracting a great deal of interest from some very wealthy bidders.

Anna is our narrator and we also hear extracts from the podcast alongside other contemporaneous newspaper clippings, articles etc.

As they set out on their journey, they are met early on by Bram Van Wyk, a wealthy, cocktail cigarette smoking South African who is travelling with his 13 year old son Marcos – an unwilling and distinctly ungrateful child.

Van Wyk knows something of the history of the silver box and as Anna and Fin get to know him it soon transpires that he is on its trail and has his own convoluted reasons for needing to get hold of it, not all of them entirely legal. Like any self-respecting religious artefact, this silver box, known as the Voyniche Casket, comes with its own set of superstitions and its own folklore. The Voyniche Casket may be a harbinger of death, but that does not stop it being a massively sought after prize.

Against their better judgement, Anna and Fin allow themselves to take advantage of Van Wyk’s private plane and soon he is setting the travel agenda as they flit across Europe enjoying the best of everything that the leading hotels of Europe have to offer.

Denise Mina’s story is a brilliant and whirlwind adventure full of dubious people hiding behind respectable facades and involved in smuggling, stealing religious iconography and generally using their wealth to prove or disprove the story of Christianity. Following the trail of the casket leads us on a whirlwind trail of theft, duplicity and murder from Hungary, to Beirut and Boston all in the name of religion.

It’s a bit like an international Maltese Falcon with just as many dodgy characters and a lot of madcap adventurism that underpins quite a serious message. Do we need to prove the existence of Christ or should we just believe? The drive to find proof is one that ignores the essence of belief and cheapens it.

Mina’s writing though reminds me that she enjoys creating graphic novels and I could so easily visualise this in graphic novel format. It is certainly entertaining and full of spirited action. The ending is priceless.

Verdict: A mad journey across Europe is full of drama and adventure for our intrepid podcasting duo. Confidence is great fun, enjoyable and definitely a bit madcap. What’s not to love?

I was delighted to get an ARC of Confidence as I love the work of Denise Mina and really enjoyed its prequel Conviction. However, this one just wasn’t for me. It follows the new career of Anna and Fin as true crime podcasters. In Conviction this career is born from marital breakdowns for Anna and Fin alongside a secret from Anna’s past that she is running from. In this case, there is not anything personal in the story for Anna and Fin except that they both want to get away from a family holiday that is going badly in the beginning of the novel (which feels like an overly complicated and erratic beginning) and decide to investigate a missing girl who once wrote in to their podcast. They then get caught up in the world of art smuggling and religious artefacts. The plot is fast paced but I didn’t connect with any of the characters and therefore didn’t care about any of the plot developments. Unfortunately, this was not a satisfying read for me.

I expected to enjoy this story about podcasters and “urbexers” - people who break into empty derelict properties and stream videos of themselves doing so - more than I did. I thought the premise was original and current and had a lot of promise for what was, essentially, a mystery about the disappearance of a young woman with an online following. The story is less about the personalities of the missing woman and the podcasters, however, than about an antique box filmed at the property and believed to contain a religious relic and the various pursuers of this priceless item, which I found to be less interesting and believable and, at times a little bit silly.

Thanks to the author, NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review.

I absolutely loved Conviction, which was the previous book starring this characters. Confidence has a bit of Da Vinci Code meets the true crime podcast generation (I’m doing it a disservice here, it’s way better that the Da Vinci Code). I just thought it lost its way a little, but it came back strong with the endings. I would definitely give another book in the series a go, and this was enjoyable, but I preferred Conviction.

The story:
Anna McDonald and Fin Cohen are trying, not entirely successfully, to enjoy a holiday with their newly blended family. But when Anna is sent a video of a young girl’s exploration of an abandoned French chateaux, only to find out that the girl has recently gone missing, the pair are plunged into an adventure involving art smuggling, missing persons and possibly murder… Will they be able to unpick the tangled web of a story going back decades, and survive to tell the tale?

My thoughts:
Although I haven’t read it, I’ve heard great things about the first book in the Anna and Fin series; the best-seller “Conviction”, which was both a Reese’s Book Club pick and a New York Times Best Crime Novel of the Year, among other accolades. So I was keen to read this second book in the series when it became available on NetGalley, and I wasn’t disappointed! The premise of a fictional account of the creation of a true crime podcast, with all the behind-the-scenes adventures that entails, is an interesting one, and I thought it worked well.

The story is narrated by Anna, and she is very much the driving force for the pair’s adventures — both from a sense of excitement and intrigue in the case, but also a desire to escape from her own personal issues. Fin appears the more passive of the pair, but between them they travel across Europe to try and get to the bottom of what's really going on, and whether the missing girl is a victim, or involved in the theft of a priceless antique herself.

The story, and the way it's told, is different to anything I've read before, and I'm keen to go back and read "Conviction" to find out how Anna and Fin first became involved in true crime podcasting. I would recommend this to lovers of fast-paced crime thrillers and fans of true crime podcasts too!

We're back in the world of podcasters Anna and Fin, whom we first met in Conviction. It was Anna who'd organised the 'family' holiday: her ex, Hamish, is now with her best friend, Estelle and her children are living with them. Fin (who was married to Estelle) is there too and it was Anna who invited his girlfriend, Sofia. It's not long before everyone realises that was a bad mistake. Sofia's difficult and with everyone trapped inside their holiday accommodation - a lighthouse, in a storm - she begins talking about Anna's past, including her real name and the rape. This was something which Anna had intended to tell the girls - twelve-tear-old Jess and ten-year-old Lizzie - when the time was right. And this wasn't the right time.

The disappearance of Lisa Lee, urban explorer and YouTuber, was almost a blessing in disguise. Anna remembered that she and Fin had heard from Lisa - she needed to go home to Glasgow and find the correspondence to see if they could help. Even the storm didn't worry her but she was surprised when Fin jumped into the car with her. Anna has left her children and Fin's left Sofia in the lighthouse; neither of them is certain what Sofia might do. Their search for Lisa is going to take them to Rome, Paris and the French countryside and they're going to get involved with some very shady people.

I have a difficulty with this series: I struggle to warm to Anna - and Fin is as substantial as fog, both physically and as a character. It was, though, a good story which progresses at breakneck speed and there are times when you struggle to keep up with what's happening. There's a lot of money and power at stake and you'll never be certain - even on the final page - that it's going to work out as you would want it to. In many ways, it's a book that's about the journey to the ending rather than the destination.

I still prefer Denise Mina as the writer of police procedurals and I'm not entirely certain that I'll want to read further books in this series - there are more engaging series out there - but I would like to thank the publishers for letting Bookbag have a review copy.

Confidence by Denise Mina
I have not read the book which precedes this called Conviction and wonder whether I would have preferred this had I done so. It is the story of an Urbexer (Person who explores urban unexplored buildings or sites.) called Lisa Lee. She posts a You Tube film of herself exploring an abandoned French chateau and then disappears from her Glasgow home.
Her disappearance attracts the attention of Podcasters Anna and Finn (who appeared in the previous book). Their search for Lisa Lee takes them on a mysterious trip to Paris and Rome and introduces the idea of the Voyniche Casket; which was originally found in Hungary during the Cold War. The search for this casket and for information about Lisa Lee becomes increasingly dangerous and there is the introduction of a shady character called Bram Van Wyk and his strange son Marcos.
No one seems capable of telling the truth and the tension does build. I did not find I really understood Anna and her motivations as much as I would have done if I had read the preceding novel and also Finn remained a shadowy character.
I quite enjoyed it but it is not a book which I would wholeheartedly recommend; I should have read Conviction first.
I would like to offer my thanks to Denise Mina, the publishers and Net Galley for the opportunity to read the book in return for an honest review.

Confidence is a fun, fast-paced follow-up to the brilliant Conviction, which I really enjoyed. We return to Anna and Fin during a very awkward family holiday. Soon they’re sucked into the case of Lisa Lee, a Youtuber who has gone missing after breaking into an abandoned house where she found a priceless artefact. Their escapade takes them across Europe and into trouble!

It’s great to be back with Anna and Fin – they’re entertaining characters and, although they’re not always the nicest people, they’re good fun to read about. Denise Mina again writes about them with humour, and gives the supporting cast the same treatment so that everyone in this book feels like real and very colourful characters!

The action is full-on and often you need to suspend your disbelief but it’s all worth it because this is a crazy, entertaining ride! I lost track of what exactly was going on at some points but it didn’t really matter because it’s a fun read, with plenty of darkness and tension scattered in there too. The podcast element is always interesting and adds a modern element to the plot. You don’t need to have read Conviction to enjoy this book, but I think it would help you get the best out of it. If you like offbeat mystery/thriller novels, this one is for you!

Confidence returns us to there world of podcasters Anna and Fin, whom Mina introduced in Conviction - the events of which turned Anna's middle class suburban life upside down.

At the beginning of Confidence, Anna seems to have retained some of that safety - holidaying with her now ex, Hamish, and their girls, alongside his new wife and Fin and his new partner. All in an isolated lighthouse, where they can cosy around and bond with one another. What could go wrong?

Of course it doesn't work - the weather is horrendous, the heating fails and soon Anna is fleeing into the teeth of the gale, putting domesticity behind her again to pursue Lisa Lee, a young urban explorer who's gone missing (Anna and Fin have received a tip-off about this). Anna had never set eye on or even heard of Lisa before this evening, so what is it about Lisa that makes Anna abandon family and even safety and head out into the night?

Readers of Conviction will know that Anna did something similar there, although she did have the excuse that there was a direct threat to her. And that Anna had a secret, and a buried identity, both of which came back to haunt her. It may be that she's still dealing with the trauma of those events, and of their being known - and that the pressure has just got too much? Or is something else going on?

Whatever, Anna flings herself (and Fin) into the search for Lisa, who disappeared after posting an online video which seems to reveal a lost secret, something she found while exploring a forbidden French chateau. A chateau that the owners seemed to have abandoned at short notice...

Teaming up with the mysterious Bran van Wyk, South African drug smuggler, dealer in shady antiques and member of the super-rich and his sulky teenage son Marcos, Anna and Fin plunge into a complex trans-European quest seeking the origins of a religious artifact, the whereabouts of Lisa, and the truth behind a series of deaths and misfortunes that have attended the progress of the silver casket from its discovery in a Hungarian field to the Parisian auction house where it is now to be sold. The casket is the focus of conspiracy theories, religious fanaticism and, apparently, criminal gangs. Anna's obsession with it seems to have an element of playing with fire, with risk.

This story is in the end not I think a mystery in quite the same way as Conviction was. I don't think that by the end we are a great deal further on with understanding who the actors are, who is doing what to who and who is working for who else. Perhaps there isn't, here, a devious conspiracy, despite the Vatican being namechecked, so much as a muddle of greed, lies and desire for power. It's hard to take what anyone says as straight, except perhaps the little people, such as Lisa's friends with whom she made her video.

As Anna and Fin become more and more confused, as Anna smokes more and more and evades questions from her daughters, it seems that they may be getting swallowed up in an unreality far from the comfort and safety of home. As they are following, not leading? How will they ever extract themselves from this dangerous world? Anna and Fin are in many respects witnesses, tagging along as events toss them now to Rome, now to Paris, back to London and so on. They are, perhaps, the man (and woman) in the street, aghast at the segment of society where organised crime, vast inherited wealth, religious obsession and a ruthless art-smuggling market overlap and bleed into one another. But at the same time they are voluntarily joining in events, passing up several opportunities to bail out and go home. Why they are doing so is for me the real mystery in Conviction, and that's part of (especially) Anna's longing story which is a long way from being resolved but I hope will be explored in further books.

I enjoyed Confidence. You need to accept that the "truth" behind events here barely matters - then you can sit back to enjoy and the ride and in particular Mina's exquisite character studies: chiefly Bran, the plausible rogue who seems to delight in telling six lies before breakfast (and then it will be a top of the range breakfast in the smartest of hotels, served in the room - or the suite - if you want). But she's also very good with the minor characters, especially the women. A new mother in a disordered flat, breastfeeding her infant in a haze of exhaustion and bliss. An apparently haughty auction house employee, confined in tight skirt and high heels, who jostles uncomfortably with Anna and Bran over a tray of champagne flutes. And more, all of them lifting the story beyond merely being a sequence of "things happening".

Through it all, Anna is at the centre of things, clearly distracting herself from facing some truths about herself and the questions that are bound to come from her daughters. (But I think there's more there). Her observations of the relationship between Bran and Marcos provide her with a stream of ongoing internal prompts, questions and moral touchstones which she uneasily takes to heart even as she refuses to answer calls form her own girls. There is more than a hint here, as I have said, that for Anna, this crazy adventure can actually stop at any point, if she wants. Say once she has found firm ground to stand on and can face her girls? The question is, will she do that before things take a turn - constantly hinted at and threatened - for the dangerous? You don't know who you are dealing with, Bran says at one point, and that's clearly true. Will Anna find out while there's still time, though?

Very entertaining and fun to read with some real moral heft (and a whole religious dimension I haven't said much about but which provides another ethical counterpoint to the whole story).

This wasn’t what I expected from Denise Mina’s sequel to Conviction and, if I’m honest, it took a bit of time to get in to the book and understand the strands of story.

Once I did I enjoyed the plot and the premise with Urbex explorers is unusual and one I hadn’t thought about before.

Anna and Finn #2

When Lisa Lee, a vulnerable young woman, vanishes from a pretty Scottish seaside town, Anna and Fin find themselves at the centre of an internet frenzy to find her. But Lisa may not be the hapless victim her father thinks. She has an unsuccessful YouTube channel and her last film showed her breaking into an abandoned French Chateau with other UrbExers and stumbling across a priceless Roman silver casket. One day after Lisa vanishes, that casket gets listed for auction in Paris, reserve price fifty million euros and a catalogue entry that could challenge the fundamental principles of major world religion.

This is the sequel to Denise Mina's Conviction and what a page turner this book is. Anna and Fin are still hosting their podcasts. They are also travelling across Europe in search of a missing woman. We travel through Scotland, Greece, Italy and the UK as Anna and Fin try to find the missing woman. The pace is steady throughout. It's also a quick and easy to read book.

I would like to thank #NetGalley #RandomHouseUK #Vintage and the author #DeniseMina for my ARC of #Confidence in exchange for an honest review.












try to find the missing womanAnna and Fin