Confidence by Denise Mina
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I have reviewed here 13 novels by Denise Mina. I liked or loved all of them and unhesitatingly recommended all 13, rating eight of them with at least four stars. Thus, I am at a total loss to explain why I do not like Confidence.

The opening of the novel is very promising. The narrator, Anna, a popular vlogger, watches a short movie made by another YouTube creator, Lisa Lee. Lisa is an "urban explorer," and the movie shows her visit to an abandoned chateau in France.

Soon, we learn that Lisa Lee vanished and that her disappearance may be connected with a very old artifact from the chateau—a casket that may have great religious significance. Ms. Mina describes the chase across Europe to locate the casket and explain Lisa's disappearance.

Despite Ms. Mina's usual accomplished writing, the story failed to interest me; finishing reading the novel turned out to be a chore. I am planning to re-read Confidence in summer, hoping to change my mind and write a more positive review.

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The Less Dead by Denise Mina
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Margo, a thirty-something physician, had been adopted as a newborn baby. She is searching for her birth mother. Through the adoption agency she meets her aunt, from whom she learns that her mother had been murdered soon after giving birth. The mother, although a drug user who needed to make money on the streets to feed her habit, managed to give up heroin for pregnancy to give her daughter a better chance in life.

Margo is being watched and has received threatening letters, but the danger only makes her more determined to uncover and explain the events of the past and to identify her mother's murderer. Many characters appear in the novel, and the mystery thread is quite complicated. To me, the most important aspect of the novel is the gloomy social commentary. Police had not invested any time in trying to solve the mother's murder. After all, she was one of the "less dead" - people, who apparently did not deserve any efforts to help from the institutions.

Margo's mother, although long dead and appearing only in memories of others, is one of the main characters in the novel. As usual, I like Mina's writing and the social commentary, and I recommend the novel. Yet, for me, it does not reach the stellar level of the author's better books.

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The Good Liar by Denise Mina
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Professor Claudia O'Sheil is about to make a life-changing decision. She is scheduled to deliver a lecture at the reception of the Royal College of Forensic Scientists in London, a lecture that would cement her leading position among forensic science experts. Claudia's most important achievement is developing the BSPS (Blood Spatter Probability Scale), which has become one of the fundamental tools in forensic science. Yet Claudia has found out that there is an error in BSPS and that many convictions secured based on using the tool may have been wrong. Will she decide to destroy her professional life by telling the truth?

The struggle with the ethic dilemma forms the narrative flow of the novel. Yes, there is a murder mystery involved, very skillfully presented, suspenseful, and full of plot twists. Yet, at least to me, that story constitutes the secondary flow. The two mysteries are masterfully connected and intertwined. The narration alternates between two timelines. One relates the current events just minutes before the lecture. The other describes the fateful events of the preceding year. The combination of these two dualities is an extraordinary successful literary device!

There is so much more in the novel! Biting critique of the class system in the UK, the system that offers unearned privileges to people who have the "right" parents as opposed to all others, who can get just a little closer to the world of privilege by having actual talent and working extremely hard. There is also a family thread in the plot: Claudia's husband has died and she is raising two young sons on her own. I am impressed by how skillfully Ms. Mina portrays the struggles of a single mother with the boys' onset of puberty.

An outstanding mystery and a very good novel. Highly recommended!

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