A Good Girls Guide to Murder – Holly Jackson

With the idea of being sensible, I only bought the first book in this trilogy. I then read it in a day and was quite upset for not having the other two books. I have since procured them and will be writing about them as well. But let us start with the very first book today.

The book in short
The case is closed. Five years ago, schoolgirl Andie Bell was murdered by Sal Singh. The police know he did it. Everyone in town knows he did it.
But having grown up in the same small town that was consumed by the murder, Pippa Fitz-Amobi isn’t so sure. When she chooses the case as the topic for her final year project, she starts to uncover secrets that someone in town desperately wants to stay hidden. And if the real killer is still out there, how far will they go to keep Pip from the truth?

I found this information here.

What did I think about the book?
When I started reading it took me a little bit to get into it. As the book contains visuals to make the book feel more like an investigation. Which is cute as it is a YA book. I am however generally not a fan. I thought the story was compelling, it had a wonderful b-plot that was focused on the growing relationship between two of the characters. If you like murder mysteries you would really enjoy this book. It was scary at times but it wasn’t as scary as adult thrillers.

I do want to add that we have to be careful with stories like this that can give us the idea or the feeling that the police do not do enough. I think that the police work hard to solve cases even though they make mistakes. They are still important, normally one teenage girl isn’t going to crack a case wide open. It is of course a bit ridiculous that a school child could solve a murder that the police could not. It is also of course very dangerous to go ‘sleuthing’ on your own. This was touched upon within the book and I found this to be very important.

It was a fun read without it being too ‘easy’ or straightforward. It had enough plot twists to keep me engaged and the ending was satisfying. I found that Pip laid out the case well. She did however have to be a bit more careful of accusing people. Some decisions regarding her safety gave the feeling of people in horror films. Luckily nothing truly bad happened to her. The ending held a lot of surprises of which I hadn’t predicted all of it, this is a total win in my book. It was surprising enough without the ending coming out of the blue.

This book made me want to pick up the others in the series and I think this is what any good book would do. It is a compelling stand-alone though, it does not end on a cliffhanger which makes it a satisfying story to read.