Six suspects. Three hours. One murder…
Pip is not in the mood for her friend’s murder mystery party. Especially one that involves 1920’s fancy dress and pretending that their town is an island called Joy. But when the game begins, Pip finds herself drawn into the make-believe world of intrigue, deception and murder.
But as Pip plays detective, teasing out the identity of the killer clue-by-clue, the murder of the fictional Reginald Remy isn’t the only case on her mind …
I liked this book; it wasn’t the prequel I was expecting when I first heard about it, but it does give a good setup for the story, with the Andie Bell case being mentioned multiple times. It was interesting to see how people viewed that case before Pip found out the truth, and how some characters revealed to be in on the murder, like Mr. Ward, are casually referenced. This book also gives us insight into other characters in the town, and it’s just interesting to read about all of these characters before the events of the next books affect them.
It’s a very short book, less than 200 pages in total, and it doesn’t really get in-depth about any serious issues in the story, focusing more on the murder mystery game they’re playing. It’s fun to see how serious Pip gets about this fake murder, completely immersing herself in the clues and mystery of it all. She comes up with this elaborate scenario about a double murder-suicide scheme where 2 characters frame another for the murder, which, despite making complete sense in the context of the game, is revealed to be incorrect, and the straightforward answer was actually right. It’s satisfying to see Pip be proven wrong at the end of the book, with her getting unreasonably angry with the game.
One problem I have with this book is just how immersed Pip gets in this game. Although it’s funny to see how involved Pip gets, her level of seriousness just doesn’t make much sense. On top of that, she makes many connections in her mind that are just too convenient, making the story seem somewhat unrealistic, especially since Pip wasn’t very interested in the game in the first place.
The ending of the book is especially significant, with Mr. Ward driving them home and pausing when he sees Ravi Singh, the brother of the kid he framed for murder. Pip sees him as well, and that is when she comes up with her Capstone project: researching the murder of Andie Bell. The foreshadowing (is it even foreshadowing if it’s a prequel? I have no clue) in this scene is interesting because it shows how Mr. Ward is still affected by the crimes he committed 5 years prior, which directly leads to Pip taking notice of Ravi and deciding to look into the case.
Overall, Kill Joy is an adequate prequel to A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder; it gives insight into the characters and town the story is set in, and establishes the reason for Pip wanting to look into Andie Bell’s murder.
- Jackson, Holly. Kill Joy. Delacorte Press, 2021
