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My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson was just as compulsive a read to me as the first book in the series, A Good Girls’ Guide to Murder. The eBook version is 417 pages. I listened to the audiobook, which clocks in at 11 hours and is narrated wonderfully by Bailey Carr and multiple others as a “full cast.”
We’re still following the third-person perspective of our main character, Pippa Fitz-Amobi, interspersed with vignettes of witness interviews and segments from her new hit true-crime podcast, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. Although she’d promised her parents that she wouldn’t play detective anymore (or at least while she’s still in high school), one of her best friends comes to her with a big ask: to help him find his missing older brother.
Jamie Reynolds is in his mid-20s and since he’s run away in the past, police determine he is a low-risk and therefore they do not opt to put their time and energy into his disappearance. Pippa last saw him at the memorial for the sixth-year anniversary of the deaths of Andie Bell and Sal Singh (aka the mystery from the first book in this series). But this time, some people in their small town just don’t trust Pippa–maybe she’s sold out for her podcast. Maybe this whole mystery is something she’s created herself to extend her podcast into a second season.
There’s also a B plot following the trial of Max Hastings, a guy who used drugs such as rohipnol to date-rape girls at high school parties. Ravi, Sal Singh’s younger brother and Pippa’s boyfriend, goes to the courthouse every day to update Pippa and her audience about that storyline.
I absolutely did not guess the twist in this one, but thinking back on it there were definite moments of foreshadowing in both this book and the first book. I’m excited to read the third and final book, As Good As Dead once it comes off hold at the library. There’s also a short-story titled “Kill Joy” that serves as a prequel and explains how Pippa caught the investigating bug due to a murder mystery party. The latter was published in the UK and I’m not entirely sure how to get a copy of it in the US, but I’m working on it!
CW: brief, undetailed mention of child death in the past; guns
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