A Good Girl's Guide to Murder
I have to admit, when I started it I did not anticipate that I'd be up till 3 in the morning finishing the book rather than sleeping. It's been so long since I've been this hooked.
The way the book is written is really refreshing - the project logs, newspaper clippings, text screenshots, interview transcripts. They give off the investigatory vibe.
So this girl Piipa Fitz-Amobi decides to look into an infamous closed murder case for her senior school capstone project. The case is about Andie Bell who was allegedly murdered by Sal Singh. Pip for her own reasons believes that Sal could not have done it. But as soon as she even starts scraping the surface, new previously unknown details start turning themselves up. Details which do not fit at all with the police's final account of the murder. The police's whole story slowly starts revealing itself as a small part of an entire web of events that had been happening around that period.
Accompanied by Sal Singh's younger brother Ravi, Pip interviews a whole lot of people related to the Andie and Sal. Not having the authority and time of an official investigator, she finds it hard to get the correct information out. She receives threats from unknown source to stop her investigation which puts her and her closed ones in danger. But that doesn't stop her. If she has decided to do something, she finds a way. The mystery reveals itself piece by piece not in order and at the end the entire picture is shown. And it is not what anyone expected at all.
She does not have god-level deduction skills like other detectives. Rather, she almost entirely get the pieces by interviewing and reading within the responses and of course by properly documenting all her results. She has her low moments too. She makes wrong decisions and catches the wrong end of the stick. But that is what makes her much more relatable than any other detective.
The book left me thinking about the story and it's outcome for so long. About what happened to Sal. About him not knowing about the background web at all and still being the victim.
I am glad that this book isn't a standalone and there is a second part too it. A third part will be released soon and there is a short prequel too. Can't wait to read it all. I think I might have a new favourite author.