Book Review
Title: As Good As Dead by Holly Jackson (A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder Book 3)
Genre: Mystery, Young Adult
Rating: 5 Stars
I read and adored the first two books in this series but I put off reading the final one since I didn’t want to say goodbye to Pip and Ravi just yet but I am finally cracking it open. The opening to As Good As Dead was interesting as we learn that Pip hasn’t been dealing well with Stanley’s death and is suffered from PTSD over the incident but this only the beginning. Charlie still hasn’t been caught and Pip feels that he holds the answers to what she is feeling right now and she is currently self-medicating on Xanax bought from Luke. She is also facing a lawsuit from Max as he wants an apology from the recording Pip published with him admitting to what he had done and she refuses telling him she would die before apologising to him as she believes he is truly a monster and wants him behind bars and I agree. Max on the other hand, is cunning and sly and if it does go to court I am not sure how well Pip is going to do with her current mental state. It would be better if she had support but she has lied to everyone and made them believe she is getting better when the opposite is true. She is also receiving unsettling comments on her podcast from an anonymous email as who will look for her when she is the one to go missing and it is question she isn’t even able to answer in her own head.
As we approach the ¼ mark in the novel, Pip now genuinely believes that she has a stalker but her parents don’t see the connections that she is seeing blaming the drawings and birds on the local cats and children, Ravi is the only one that believes her and encourages her to go to DI Hawkins even though she doesn’t remotely trust the police anymore. Pip does go and see DI Hawkins like Ravi asked but he says exactly what she was expecting downplaying her fears and tries to attribute them to her PTSD even when Pip herself is so sure now about the stalker before she leaves she makes sure the police now exactly what she thinks of them. Pip is also being plagued by a series of violent and disturbing thoughts whenever she sees Max, even imagining killing him which isn’t normally for the straight-laced, scientific Pip we have come to know and love. Pip decides she is the only one that can solve the case and her very life might depend on it, over the next few days the stick figures get closer to her house before they begin climbing the wall to her bedroom and she knows whoever it is, is coming for her and soon. Pip doesn’t share the statistics about male stalkers often killing their victims with Ravi but she does share information on a very similar set of murders that happened around the same time Andie Bell died. The DT or duct tape killer as he was called killed five women over a longer period of time, he stalked them, left drawing and dead animals before abducted and killing them and abandoning their bodies in nearby locations. It seems to me like this might be a copy cat killer or someone that is using the MO of the DT killer because they know that Pip will look into it and know what is lying in wait for her. At this point, Ravi is beginning to get really worried but he knows what Pip is capable of and begins helping her when she begins her research hoping to find out who is behind this since most stalkers are someone known to the victims and in the past year or so she has made a lot of enemies.
As we cross the ¼ mark in the novel, I was excited to see where this was going to go but after how dark the second book got, I am not sure what direction Jackson is going to take this in. We learn that the DT killer is a man named Billy Karras and he has been in prison for over six years, Ravi convinces Pip to call his mother who has been running a campaign to prove her son’s innocence and she ends up doing just that. However, Pip learns that Maria Karras contacted her through the podcast back in April asking for her help in proving Billy’s innocence so she is more than willing to provide Pip with whatever she wants. Maria explains that Billy worked for Green Scene, Jason Bell’s company so he worked on a lot of the sites where the bodies were dumped and found Tara’s body. He also tried to revive her which is how she DNA and fingerprints were on her body. At this point Pip is still unsure about Billy but when she read the police interview which lasted nearly 9 hours and spans 100 pages she can see clearly that the confessions was coerced and all the details Billy confessed to where fed to him beforehand which terrifies Pip. Not because there is an innocent man in jail but because there is a serial killer still out there and he is planning on making her his next victim. Pip ends up going down familiar rabbit holes and sees to Harriet, a sister of the one of the victims and learns that she knew Andie Bell and that became friends after her sister died which seems out of character for Andie but it also explains the mystery HH entry in her diary which puzzled Pip before. It seems everything is coming full circle with the Bell family as they started Pip’s journey and now they are going to end it as well. Harriet speaks about the pigeons and chalk drawing but also the prank calls which happened in the week prior to her sister dying which means Pip might have less than a week left herself. However, she isn’t helpless as the number is blocked she downloads an app that will unblock the number without letting the caller know and that small piece of evidence will bring Pip closer to the truth but a lot of familiar faces are appearing, Jason Bell, the owner of the company, Daniel Da Silva, a former employee at the same time Billy worked there and I have a sinking feeling.
As we approach the halfway mark in the novel, Pip begins trying to dig deeper the way she has in her previous investigations but something feels completely off about this potentially it could be because DT is already so close to her and her time is running out and she knows it. The deeper down the rabbit hole Pip goes, the more lost and unsure she feels but she knows in order to save herself she has to learn who the DT killer is. With the help of Becca she manages to get into Andie’s second email, the one she initially emailed Harriet from and there is a draft email there. The draft explains that Andie knows who the DT killer is and she is close enough to him that she sees him frequently. She doesn’t say his name in the email but she goes on to explain that everything from selling drugs to trying to blackmail her teacher were to escape from DT. This puts a whole new perspective on the situation for Ravi and Pip since they understand why Andie did what she did and didn’t confide in anyone not even Sal because she was afraid for her life and the lives of the people she loved. All the evidence she has seems to be pointing her to Daniel Da Silva but something doesn’t feel right about that to me but she ends up heading over to Nat’s house to speak to her when her phone rings and she knows it is DT’s final call before he makes her disappear. Pip makes the ultimately flaw here of gloating to a seasoned serial killer about knowing who he really is and seconds before she can uncover his identity he grabs her off the street. Pip wakes up in the boot of his car and she knows her chances of survival have dropped to less than 1% but when he comes to remove her from the boot she looks up at Jason Bell not Daniel Da Silva and suddenly everything makes sense but there is nothing she can do now but pray that someone else namely Ravi joins the dots together himself before Jason kills her.
As we cross into the second half of the novel, knowing the identity of the serial killer now kidnapper at the halfway mark makes me wonder what is going to come in the second half but I can’t wait to find out. Seeing Jason Bell in all his unhinged glory was amazing and especially how Pip’s reaction to it was completely what you would expect from someone in that situation. In fact, the only reason she avoids full panic mode is become she conjures Ravi in her mind and he helps her calm down and talk through the logical steps. When Jason leaves her alone which is in his MO, Pip knows that if she doesn’t escape now she is going to do and nothing like fighting for your life brings out the strongest parts of yourself. Pip’s struggles and almost gives up hope at one point but she does eventually manage to free herself and escape from the room fleeing into the forest but when Jason returns she stops. Pip knows she can get free and call for help but she is suddenly assaults with memories of every time the police didn’t believe and the consequences of that and she can’t live with even the remote possibility that Jason Bell might walk free like Max did so much like Charlie she takes the law into her own hands and kills Jason Bell. After the deed is done the only person Pip can call for help is Ravi and she gives him instructions like leaving his phone at home and just the back roads to get to her. When he arrives and she explains what she has done, she knows that she can’t call the police and they need to cover this murder up by themselves and luckily Pip has all the knowledge she needs tucked away. They decide to frame someone else for the murder rather than trying to dispose of the body and Max is the perfect person. They set the scene they need and then head home to create their alibis, Ravi with his cousin and Pip with her friends and she turns to Nat, Jamie and Connor for it explaining that she can put Max away for good but they can never ask her how and she will never tell them and they surprisingly agree. Pip heads over to Max’s house, covering the cameras and having the drugs needed to knock Max out ready with her and Nat is going to be her distraction for it all but there is still a small chance that it might not work and something might go wrong which means Pip would end up in prison for the rest of her life.
As we approach the ¾ mark in the novel, we’ve still got around 200 pages left for Pip and Ravi to get away with murder and put a serial rapist behind bars and I can’t wait to see if they actually pull it off or if Pip is going to prison. Almost the entirety of this series is dedicated to Pip and Ravi covering her tracks and framing Max for the murder from trying to alter the time of death by moving, cooling and warming Jason’s body to manipulate the factors used to determine time of death. Next, they establish alibi’s and some of Pip’s friends like Naomi and Jamie know something serious has happened but don’t ask any questions. Pip does several things to reinforce her story like accepting the offer from Max’s lawyer taking away her motive for the crime, being seen have takeout with her friends and having her parents see her return home around midnight. During this time she has also drugged Max and collected the items she needs from his home like his hair, his phone and clothes to stage him being present at the scene of the crime before wiping down any trace she could have left there and starting a fire to consume everything else except the blood and the body. Now, comes the hardest part as they need to return the clothes and phone to Max’s home but Pip is unsure whether she gave him enough drugs for him to still be unconscious when they arrive back at his home and this is where the plan could still come crashing down around them. Pip during most of this has retreated into herself, similar to the way Naomi did after they took Sal’s alibi away from him but given the groundwork they have set I have a feeling they are going to get away with it after all but this night has left invisible scars on Pip that are never going to go away.
As we cross into the final section of the novel, the twists and turn the novel took kept me on the edge of my seat wondering if they were going to get away with it or not. I am going to say very little about the ending of the novel because it was a mind-blowing way to end a mind-blowing series and I am a little sad it is all over but at this point Pip and Ravi have been through enough and I am glad the author knew when to end the series. Overall, this has been a solid 5 star series and each one of these books has left me breathless by the end and this might be contender for my favourite book of the year. Highly Recommended!
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Komentar