A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (Part 1) by Holly Jackson

Title: A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (Part 1)

Author(s) Name(s): Holly Jackson

Published in: 2019

Why You Might Like This Book: Read this book if you enjoy

• amateur detective stories,
• plenty of twists and turns, and
• true-crime inspired novels.

Who Should Avoid This Book: Avoid this book if you are triggered by or dislike

• anxiety, or
• murder, or
• sexual assault, or
• drug abuse!

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder is the first book in the series which goes by the same name, a series of thriller, crime fiction books. This best-seller YA novel, written by Holly Jackson, has an average 4.3-star rating on GoodReads. What makes this book a best-seller? If you are a fan of thriller novels, is this one worth your time? Allow me to review this.

As someone living in India, I got to read the version that is exclusively made for the Indian sub-continent, so I don’t know if this applies just to this version or the same applies to the original book as well. I had to make peace with the fact that if I wanted myself to enjoy the book, I should ignore the many grammatical and punctuation mistakes. The irony is that the lead character is presented as a “grammar police” person!

The plot is an interesting one, even though cliché in some ways (cold case re-opened) but hey, how many different, unique ways can one think of for the basic plot in the world of crime? Pippa “Pip” Fitz-Amobi is a high-achieving, curious, bright, smart student in her final year of school, who has a thing for crime. She lives with her loving family – her mom, step-dad, and step-brother in Little Kilton, a small town, where nearly 5 years before, a young girl named Andie Bell disappeared and was never found again. And a young boy named Salil Singh had allegedly killed himself, confessing to the murder of Andie Bell, and the case was closed. But Pip knew Sal Singh to some extent since it’s a small town and everyone goes to the same school. He was a nice, kind boy, so Pip strongly felt that he could not have been a murderer. When she gets to choose a topic for her EPQ (Extended Project Qualification), she uses that opportunity to investigate the Andie Bell case on her own.

With a keen interest to prove that Sal must have been innocent, and to find out the truth, if it was not Sal, then who must have killed Andie, is Andie even really dead or she alive somewhere, did Sal really die by suicide, and other such questions, Pip starts her investigation. It’s a small town, where most people seem to know one another through some means. This case was also the most happening news back then. All this means that solving the case is not going to be easy.

Not knowing where to begin, Pip starts interviewing all the people who she thought of as being close to Andie or those who knew her well or those who saw her and spent time with her during the last few days and weeks when she was seen, before going missing.

As part of her investigation or for her EPQ project as she calls it, she connects with Ravi Singh, the brother of the late Sal Singh to ask him some questions. The Singhs have faced a lot of hate in the last 5 years for being the family members of the guy who murdered Andie Bell, and it doesn’t help that they are brown people. Ravi has been bullied in school, his family can’t go out in peace, they have no friends left, and they remain withdrawn. Initially, Ravi is hesitant but he starts trusting her when he learns that Pip also believes that Sal was not guilty of murder.

Soon, either alone and by herself or with Ravi, Pip goes around interviewing different candidates, including the family members of Sal and Andie, their classmates and close friends, their teachers, the reporter from Kilton Mail who had published articles on the case, the police officer who worked on the case, and so on. As one can expect, as she gains more knowledge, new leads turn up. She starts creating a list of “persons of interest” with all her suspects on the list.

All this is fine, but unfortunately, in most of these chapters, there is no twist or turn that you can’t see coming. The story is painfully predictable, chapter by chapter, and that is not what a thriller reader would want. Because of this issue, the book doesn’t feel like a “thriller” at all; you don’t feel that “thrill” anywhere, except the last 50-70 pages, where some twists come in, finally.

Warning: Spoilers here. For example, when Pip receives threat after threat, she is afraid and nervous but still doesn’t take any of those threats seriously, she has already met people who could be very dangerous, then she takes her dog, Barney out for a walk, which also somehow happens to be late in the evening, not during the daytime, when it’s dark everywhere, and in the woods as well. What do you expect at this point? Anyone can guess how the author would try to get an emotional reaction out of the reader here: yes, the dog is dead.

Also, some chapters are unnecessarily longer than they need to be, what could be expressed in a few sentences become an entire chapter in some cases, so you might find yourself begging the author to come to the point because we all know what’s it that’s going to happen next. Not surprisingly, it’s also an easy read; even though you can foresee the direction of the story and feel not thrilled at most turning points or major events in the story, one can still acknowledge that it is a fast-moving story that is also interesting. I would give it a 3.5-star rating. What do you think? Let us know in the comments!

Most of those who enjoy A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder would also most likely enjoy Truly Devious – another high-school crime thriller.

Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson – An Unputdownable Contemporary Thriller