48 pages • 1 hour read
Holly JacksonKill Joy
Fiction | Novella | YA | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary
The players realize that it is just the pizza delivery, and Lauren tries to mask her shriek with a cough. They return to the dining room to eat, and Pip begins writing down notes on everyone’s alibis and theories. She thinks that Ant’s character, Bobby, is suspicious but wonders whether her personal feelings about Ant are influencing her perspective. Pip feels herself becoming increasingly invested in the mystery, “falling headfirst into it, the rest of the world fading out” (31), as Jamie announces that in his second inspection of the crime scene, he discovered that Reginald’s hidden safe was open and missing his important documents.
Before Jamie can give the next instructions, Pip is up and out of the room. She goes to the living room, labeled as the library, while others go upstairs in the direction of the study, but Pip understands that the evidence would not be there because someone stole it.
Pip surveys the library and spots ripped-up pieces of paper in the fireplace. She can make out writing on one of the pieces that reads “Clue #2,” and Zach arrives in the library as well. Together, they piece the paper back together and discover that it is Reginald’s last will and testament. Zach and Pip return to the dining room to share their discovery with the others, and Pip cannot help but wonder if Reginald left anything in his will to Celia. Jamie instructs Pip to read the will aloud. In the will, Reginald bequeaths total ownership of his company to his son, Ralph; £500,000 to his daughter-in-law, Lizzie; £200,000 and artwork by Celia’s late mother to Celia; and six months’ wages to his remaining staff. Jamie points out that Reginald drafted the will only the week before, and Pip notices another important aspect of the will: Bobby has been written out of the will entirely.
Chapter 5 Summary
Ant reaches out for the will, excoriating his character’s father. Pip explains that she and Zach found the ripped-up will in the fireplace, and Ant becomes defensive as Pip points out that the evidence does not look great for Zach’s character, Bobby. Ant insists that he did not commit the murder, but Pip reminds him that he had a “fraught” conversation with Reginald earlier that day (40), implying that the nature of their argument was because of the will.
Jamie instructs them all to turn to the next page in their gameplay booklets for information about things that the characters overheard or saw leading up to the murder. Pip reads her instructions for the next phase of the game, learning that Ralph heard her character on the phone the night before the murder reciting numbers and using the word “terminate.” The game instructs Pip to state that she was discussing her contract with her employer. The booklet also tells Pip to share with the group that she heard a tense conversation with Ralph and his father on the way to the phone call, including phrases such as “This scheme of yours is ridiculous and will never work […] won’t get away with this” (40). Pip wonders about the nature of the supposed phone call her character had, knowing that Celia has secrets to hide but unsure of what they are.
Ant launches into a story about a conversation he overheard between Reginald and the butler, in which Reginald remarked that he was dreading his birthday because of what happened on his birthday the year before. Jamie asks Ant to elaborate, and Ant remarks that there was a terrible accident in which his mother died falling off the bluffs of the island during a walk with his character. Each time Ant uses the word “accident,” Pip notices Zach flinch. Pip understands that this is something the game told Zach’s character to do and puts it together that Ralph must believe his brother, Bobby, killed their mother. Pip begins writing all this down in her notebook.
Jamie asks if anyone else has heard something strange, and Zach begins talking about how his character (Ralph) overheard Celia talking on the phone the night before, reciting a string of numbers. Pip immediately defends herself, reciting the lie about discussing her contract with her employer and pivoting to bringing up the conversation Celia heard between Ralph and Reginald. Zach, as Ralph, deflects, stating that they were just discussing business because it has not been performing well of late, experiencing mounting pressure from the rival casino business run by the Garza family.
Zach continues, sharing that someone has been stealing money from the London casino, and Lauren, as Lizzie, acts shocked to hear this news about the casino that she manages. Pip thinks she hears something outside and interrupts the game to say so. Connor cuts the music, and everyone pauses to listen, startled by the sound of a crash outside.
Chapter 6 Summary
Jamie tries to quell the panic of the others by telling them that the noise is just the shed door blowing in the wind. Jamie laughs at their panic, and Lauren reminds him that they have all grown up in “murder town” (49), which impacts their response. Ant alludes to Sal’s and Andie’s ghosts, but Cara stops him. Jamie refocuses their attention on the game and instructs them all to turn to the next page in their game booklets.
Pip reads her booklet, which instructs her to mention a tense conversation she heard between Lizzie and Reginald earlier in the evening. Reginald referred to Lizzie’s “sticky fingers” after Lizzie spilled jam on herself during tea (50). The instructions also remind Pip to pay close attention to secrets that the others will reveal. Pip looks up from her booklet and sees a sour look on Lauren’s face, and Pip realizes that Lauren’s character, Lizzie, is stealing from the casino she manages due to Reginald’s mention of “sticky fingers” and Ralph’s conversation with Reginald about how someone was stealing from the casino.
Pip realizes that this is motive enough for Lizzie to murder Reginald, but before she can say anything, Zach shares that his character’s brother, Bobby, developed a gambling addiction during his time working for their father’s casino. This addiction led him to become indebted to a local gang called the East End Streeters that threatened to kill him when he could not repay his debts. This caused Reginald to forbid Bobby from having anything to do with the casino again, although he continued to bankroll his eldest son’s lifestyle under the promise that he would never gamble again.
Ant, in character, admits that this is all true, stating that he did not hold a grudge against their father for any of this and actually enjoyed not having to work without sacrificing his lifestyle. Jamie, in character, mentions that he is familiar with the East End Streeters and lost his partner in a shootout during a cocaine bust earlier that year. Jamie asks if anyone else knows of any ill-will toward Reginald, and Pip shares the story about Lizzie’s “sticky fingers,” which Lauren frames as a simple joke between father and daughter-in-law.
Cara chimes in to share a revelation that earlier this week, her character, Dora, and Humphrey were talking, and Humphrey stated that he “hated” Reginald and wished “he were dead” (54).
Chapters 4-6 Analysis
These chapters develop the narrative of the murder-mystery game as well as charting The Development of Investigative Skills and Critical Thinking in Pip. Pip begins thinking like an investigator: “[H]unched over her small notebook, writing down everyone’s alibis and her initial theories […] She needed to think objectively, remove herself and her feelings from the equation” (30). This quote illustrates the rapid development of Pip’s critical-thinking and investigative skills as she considers the other players’ alibis and motives. Pip stops herself when she begins scrutinizing one player, Ant, more closely than the other players, wondering if she is allowing her personal bias against Ant as a person to get in the way of her ability to think objectively. This shows Pip’s ability to self-reflect and not allow her feelings to cloud her perception.
Pip’s investigative skills also stretch as she begins noticing subtle nuances in the other players’ behaviors that enable her to put pieces of the mystery together. One example is when Ant, in character, tells a story about how he was present when his mother died, falling from a cliff, repeatedly calling the situation an accident while Zach, playing Ant’s brother, flinches each time: “Twice within thirty seconds, that was weird […] Wait, there was a pattern here. Both times Zach had flinched right after Ant said the word accident” (42). Pip not only notices this subtle reaction but is also then able to take it a step further and infer that Zach is reacting as such because his character does not believe that their mother’s death was an accident. This casts Ant’s character, Bobby, in an even more negative light, as it suggests that his character is capable of murder.
Pip’s developing investigative abilities are closely tied to The Allure of Mystery and Justice, which continues to pull Pip in deeper as she pursues justice through trying to solve the game’s mystery:
Maybe solving murders wasn’t too different from homework after all. She could feel herself falling headfirst into it, the rest of the world fading out, like when she got lost in one of her essays or listening to an entire true crime podcast series in one night, or anything, really. Teachers called it ‘excellent focus,’ but Pip’s mom worried that it fell much closer to obsession (31).
Pip has a natural inclination to fall “headfirst” into things, viewing most things in her life as a competition and relentlessly pursuing achievement. The game becomes no different for her as she becomes more comfortable untangling the clues of the mystery, gaining the same sense of satisfaction and accomplishment that she does when doing homework. This quote also serves as an allusion to Pip’s lingering anxiety about not yet having chosen a senior capstone project topic as she draws closer to deciding to reinvestigate the murder of Andie Bell as her project topic. As this novella is a prequel to the A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series (See: Background), it establishes Pip’s character traits (and interest in true crime) early on in this “practice” mystery before tackling the investigation into Andie’s murder.
As Andie’s murder and the question of Sal Singh’s guilt continue to be subtext in the murder-mystery game, so do The Lasting Impacts of Traumatic Events. The overall mood of the evening is one of intrigue, mystery, and suspense, with multiple jump scares and jarring moments for the players. When the shed door slams shut outside, all the teenagers, aside from Jamie, physically jolt in their chairs. Jamie teases them for their jumpiness, and one player, Lauren, points out that their reaction is in direct response to the events of five years ago: “Well, excuse us for growing up in murder town” (49). Ant takes this a step further: “Could be ghosts […] I know of two local vengeful spirits who could fit the bill” (49). Both Ant’s and Lauren’s responses indicate the lasting impact that the murders have had on each of them. While Lauren acknowledges that she is jumpy directly because they experienced the tragic loss of two of their peers only five years ago, Ant tries masking his fear with humor. Each is a coping mechanism in response to experiencing a traumatic event, illustrating the wide-reaching effects of Andie’s murder and Sal’s death by suicide.
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