As Good As Dead

As Good as Dead (September 2021) is the third novel in a trilogy entitled A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. As protagonist Pip tries to right past wrongs, the novel examines the themes of Justice Denied, The Struggle to Be Heard, and Pure Evil.

The first book in the series, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (February 2020), became a multi-million-copy New York Times bestseller. It was also author Holly Jackson’s first novel. Jackson is British, but she writes the series from the perspective of a native-born American teenager living in Connecticut. The British edition of the book uses an English setting instead.

The second title in the trilogy is Good Girl, Bad Blood (March 2021). The books are currently being adapted for a six-part series to be aired on BBC television. Aside from the trilogy, Jackson also completed a standalone thriller, Five Survive (November 2022). Good Girl, Bad Blood is categorized as Teen & Young Adult Law & Crime Fiction. This study guide and all its page citations are based on the book’s Kindle edition.

Content Warning: This novel depicts or discusses violent sexual assault and graphic torture.

Plot Summary

The novel is set in the fictional small town of Fairview, Connecticut. Events occur during August in an unspecified contemporary year, but the book’s final chapter concludes more than a year later. The story is told using a limited third-person narrative technique from the viewpoint of the book’s protagonist, Pip Fitz-Amobi.

As the novel begins, 18-year-old high school senior Pip deals with the consequences of events that occurred the preceding spring. She has been producing a true crime podcast series for two seasons and is now being sued for libel by serial rapist Max Hastings, who was acquitted at the end of the previous book. For this and several other miscarriages of justice, Pip is furious at the broken legal system that lets the guilty go free.

After Pip publishes Max’s recorded phone confession on her podcast, she is the one whose actions are being called into question. At the same time, Pip finds she is being stalked by someone who leaves dead pigeons and chalk drawings in her driveway. He also emails messages that read, “Who will look for you when you’re the one who disappears?” (36). Pip learns that this same pattern was used by a murderer known as the DT Killer. The DT stands for the duct tape he wound around the heads of his victims before strangling them.

This threatening behavior escalates, but neither Pip’s parents nor the police take any action to protect her. Eventually, she is abducted by her stalker, who turns out to be the DT Killer, whom everyone assumes is already in jail. In reality, the serial killer is Jason Bell, the father of Andie Bell. She was the subject of Pip’s first-season podcast. Pip manages to escape her attacker but decides he will also escape justice unless she does something about it. She returns and bludgeons the DT Killer with a hammer, killing him.

Afterward, Pip and her boyfriend Ravi spend an entire night cleaning up the crime scene, slowing rigor mortis in Jason’s body, and establishing airtight alibis for themselves. Pip also enlists the aid of her friends to implicate Max as the killer. Despite Pip’s anxieties that her plan will be discovered, she creates such a good evidence trail that the police have no choice but to charge Max with the murder.

Because Jason was indirectly responsible for all the tragedies Pip covered during her first two podcast seasons, she believes she is justified in killing him. She also believes that Max deserves punishment since he has already escaped justice too many times. As a serial rapist, he will continue to harm women unless somebody puts him away for good. The novel ends with Max’s conviction a year after Jason’s death. Pip finally feels a sense of closure and is ready to resume her normal life. After a long separation from Ravi to protect themselves from being implicated in the crime, the two are reunited.