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Rating: How Good Girls Die (A Good Girls Guide To Murder, 2019) is the debut novel of British author Holly Jackson. It became a bestseller thanks to the buzz on the internet (particularly TikTok), as well as the first chapter of a trilogy continued with Good Girls, Bad Blood and A Good Girl Is a Dead Girl. In August 2024, the BBC/Netflix TV series adapting the first book into six episodes was released.
Little Kilton is a town nestled in the green of the English countryside. It is here that seventeen-year-old Pippa Fitz-Amobi, known as Pip, lives with her mother, who became a widow when Pip was just a year old, her Nigerian stepfather, her ten-year-old brother, and their dog.
Summer has ended, and during her final year of high school, Pip must complete an EPQ (Extended Project Qualification), a sort of thesis or research paper to attach to her university application for Cambridge and other schools. She turns into a criminologist and revisits an incident that happened right in Little Kilton five years ago: Andie Bell, the most popular girl in school, disappeared without a trace. The police suspected her Indian boyfriend, Sal Singh, who was found dead from a drug overdose after an initial interrogation. His death was seen by everyone as a suicide, the suicide as an admission of guilt for Andie's murder, and the case was closed. Pip, who remembers Sal as the good guy who defended her from bullies when she was small (in the TV series, she has a deeper motivation, and those who have seen THAT flashback know what I mean), starts snooping around with the help of Ravi, Sal's younger brother determined to clear his name. She will realize she's onto something when she starts receiving threatening messages.
Honestly, I didn't find this first novel as brilliant and innovative as many claim: it's a big episode of Derrick or Law & Order spread over 500 pages or six TV episodes. Nonetheless, the mystery is well-conceived, the writing is very smooth, and the twists occur just at the right moments. The classic work that says nothing new but says it very well. Moreover, being a "young adult," it is appreciated that thorny issues like drug dealing or rape are treated without falling into the gruesome or morbid. Truly an excellent mystery suitable for all ages, which can be forgiven for the forced wokeness now omnipresent in all fiction products (Pip with her obviously cohesive and happy multiethnic family, her best friend obviously gay, Sal blamed without benefit of the doubt because Indian, the rich blond white guy who turns out to be a serial rapist...).
The second novel takes place a few months after the first. Having solved the case of Andie and Sal, Pip has become a local celebrity with her true crime podcast. She promised her family not to get into trouble again. But one day, Connor, one of her oldest and dearest friends, knocks on her door in despair because his older brother, twenty-four-year-old Jamie, has disappeared. Since he had run away from home before, the police refuse to lift a finger. Pip, initially reluctant, starts investigating again, helped by Connor and her inseparable Ravi, now her boyfriend.
A sequel I preferred over the original: always high-paced and tense, a mystery with really unpredictable developments (from catfishing online to a serial killer dead twenty years earlier), a shocking climax, and a bittersweet ending that bridges to the next novel.
In the third volume, Pip is in full post-traumatic stress after the previous adventure, to the point of being a slave to Xanax (bought under the table from a dealer) to sleep. While trying to piece her life together a few weeks before starting university, she finds herself targeted by a stalker. The police think it's a prank and, for a change, wash their hands of it. Pip must roll up her sleeves once again, and investigating, she realizes there's still a lot of important things to discover about Andie Bell's murder, from which all her adventures originated…
This last novel lacks rhythm compared to the previous ones (at least in the first part) because the author takes the time to explore the protagonist's traumatized state of mind. However, the crime plot is constructed with surgical precision, and it ties up all the saga's threads, making everything come together neatly.
Many fans were unfortunately disappointed and annoyed that this time Pip, to save her life, keep her loved ones safe, and achieve justice, will be forced to get her hands dirty in the worst possible way, but it didn't particularly bother me for two reasons.
First: it's normal that Pip is no longer as naive and idealistic as she was at the beginning of the story. And the fact that a character evolves based on experience, just like a real person, has always been an asset to a writer, not a flaw.
Second: as Leonard Cohen said, "There is no decent place to stand in a massacre." In life, there are situations so complicated that whatever you decide to do will never be the absolutely right thing. You can only hope it's the least wrong choice and live with the weight of your decision, which is the essence of the whole story (or at least that's how I interpreted it).
Finally, there's Kill Joy, the prequel novella (not included in this volume), in which Pip, playing "murder mystery dinner" with her friends, showcases her investigative acumen for the first time and decides to revisit the case of Andie and Sal.
With this prologue also narrated, we are now faced with a perfect, resolved, and complete story, on which nothing more can be added.
Yet… Yet, I've grown attached to the character of Pip—this young Jessica Fletcher, resolute and tormented, sweet and sharp at the same time—perhaps also because, having been introduced to her through the Netflix series, she will always have the charming and sweet face of the talented Emma Myers for me. The fact is, I would gladly read other adventures of hers, perhaps set during her university years or adulthood.
I realize that after what she's been through, it would be crazy for Pip to still play detective. But when a good person has a heavy burden on their conscience (like she does in the third book), they don't believe they deserve a serene and quiet life and spend much of it trying to make amends. Everything we've read so far could be a splendid origin story, the motive that would drive Pip to become a professional detective or criminologist.
So, Holly Jackson, if you're reading this, please consider it: there are many Andies and Sals who deserve justice and many Connors who need to be found. Pip Fitz-Amobi is the heroine that young adult fiction doesn't deserve, but that we readers need.
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