a good girl's guide to murder

Sometimes, even when you’ve seen the same thing executed before, you just can’t help but enjoy it. Holly Jackson’s a good girl’s guide to murder, a young adult murder mystery about...well, the mystery behind a murder, fits into this category. Some trigger warnings: there are drugs, people are raped outside the parameters of the story, and the murder is eventually described in detail. If any of this makes you uneasy, don’t read the story.

That aside, it’s a great novel. The characters flow very well together, especially Pippa, our main character, and Ravi, the suspected murderer’s brother. Sometimes in these stories the detective walks alone, but here Pippa has a life outside of the mystery that helps develop her and keep the large cast straight in the reader’s memory.

Of course, any mystery is moot without a solid plot, and a good girl’s guide to murder delivers. It keeps enough going on to keep the reader guessing until the end and adds an extra layer of tension at every turn, especially after Pippa starts getting threat notes. And the end surprises everyone at the epic whodunnit.

“Pip gasped. / Below her final words someone had typed: YOU NEED TO STOP THIS, PIPPA. / Over and over again. Hundreds of times.”

Recommended for anyone needing a murder mystery with a life.

--Grace Nask