Genre: Mystery/thriller Age Range: YA Star Rating: 5 stars Series: yes - final book in trilogy
*SPOILER ALERT: contains SPOILERS for A GOOD GIRL’S GUIDE TO MURDER and GOOD GIRL BAD BLOOD*
Synopsis:
Pip Fitz-Amobi is haunted by the way her last investigation ended. Soon she’ll be leaving for Cambridge University but then another case finds her . . . and this time it’s all about Pip.
Pip is used to online death threats, but there’s one that catches her eye, someone who keeps asking: who will look for you when you’re the one who disappears? And it’s not just online. Pip has a stalker who knows where she lives.
The police refuse to act and then Pip finds connections between her stalker and a local serial killer. The killer has been in prison for six years, but Pip suspects that the wrong man is behind bars. As the deadly game plays out, Pip realises that everything in Little Kilton is finally coming full circle. If Pip doesn’t find the answers, this time she will be the one who disappears . . .
Synopsis taken from Goodreads. Add to your shelves here.
Review:
I mean, wow. How do you end a series of pulse-pounding thrillers that have been international hits? Just like this.
It’s another addictive read, and choosing to read a book about a stalker in a park in broad daylight was a very good choice. There are some really unsettling elements, particularly how the stalker uses tricks Pip had used to solve previous mysteries against her.
It’s so impressive how Holly Jackson has managed to link the three mysteries together. The second book fits into a tiny gap left during edits on the first book (a gap deliberately made in case there was another book!) and now this one ties back to the first case too. It makes it even more personal and unnerving, asking more questions about what happened six years ago in Little Kilton.
Pip is suffering with PTSD from the shooting at the end of the second book, and struggling also with the ambiguous nature of right and wrong, and personal and institutional justice. After everything she’s been through, to then be tangling with her own mind while trying to find the truth – when people are discounting her thoughts because of the PTSD – it made me root for her even more. I wanted her to be able to stop and heal, to have the time and space, so I needed her to solve the case (particularly as it was her life in danger) so she could do that.
The midpoint completely turns the book around, taking it in a very different direction. There’s so much I want to say about it, but it would be spoil EVERYTHING. But it’s tense and challenges you to think about right and wrong – to decide which actions cross the line and whether the outcome is correct or not. For a series that has played so much with who is the real villain here (beyond the outright awful ones), it’s the perfect way to end it.
Read my reviews of other books by Holly Jackson:
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (this series):
Standalones:
Sifa Elizabeth Reads 