Read a full summary of Good Girl, Bad Blood, book #2 in Holly Jackson’s A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series. This page is full of spoilers, so beware. If you are wondering what happened in Good Girl, Bad Blood, then you are in the right place!
Special thanks to Susan Jensen, a new BSR contributor, who wrote this great recap! Visit her blog to check out what she’s reading and see what’s on her mind. And donât forget to follow Susan on Goodreads and Facebook!
Author
Holly Jackson
Ratings
4.6 stars on Amazon
4.33 stars on Goodreads
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A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder
#1 A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (recap)
#2 Good Girl, Bad Blood (this page)
#3 As Good As Dead (recap)
***** Everything below is a SPOILER *****
What happened in Good Girl, Bad Blood?
Good Girl, Bad Blood starts six weeks after the events from A Good Girlâs Guide to Murder. Although Elliot Ward has been arrested for the murder of Sal Singh, Pip feels like the media isnât telling the whole story. Thatâs what she intends to do in her podcast, which Ravi names A Good Girlâs Guide to Murder. The podcast becomes an instant sensation, bringing her both positive attention and death threats. Although her listeners are clamoring for another season, Pip insists sheâs done with investigating murders. Her obsession with the last one was unhealthy and dangerous, she says.
A month later, Pip has to testify at Max Hastingsâ trial. Heâs accused of drugging and raping Becca Bell, as well as other girls. Her parents donât allow her to attend the rest of the proceedings since she has school, but Ravi does.
A large memorial is held in Fairview for Sal Singh and Andie Bell. Pip attends with Ravi. Among many other people, she sees her friend Connor Reynolds and his older brother, Jamie. She hears the brothers talking to each other in low, urgent voices. Later that evening, Jamie bumps into Pip while walking slowly through the crowd with a determined look in his eye. He apologizes for running into her but is so distracted he doesnât even seem to recognize Pip, which she finds odd.
The next evening, a worried Connor comes to see Pip at her home. He says Jamie is missing, heâs not answering his phone, and no one has seen him since the memorial the night before. Even though the Reynolds family reported the disappearance to the police, they were told nothing could be done since Jamie is, at 24, an adult and also has a history of leaving home without communicating with his loved ones. Connor says heâs worried about Jamie because his brother has been acting strange lately. Since the cops donât seem concerned, Connor asks Pip to investigate. She says she doesnât do that anymore but will try to persuade Detective Hawkins to take the matter more seriously. When Hawkins wonât be swayed, Pip reluctantly agrees to launch her own investigation.
Pip goes to the Reynoldsâ house with her recording equipment. First, she interviews Joanna, Connor and Jamieâs mother. Joanna describes her son as feeling lost and unable to commit to anything. She says he doesnât really have any friends in town except Nat da Silva, who heâs in love with (although she doesnât feel the same way about him). Lately, Joanna says, Jamie has been acting strangeâgetting upset easily, staying out late, oversleeping, almost missing work, etc. When Pip interviews Connor, he adds that Jamie had been acting very moody, making secretive phone calls, and sneaking out of the house at night. He also says that Jamie and their dad do not get along well and had a nasty fight the night of the memorial. Connor says Jamie told him he was going to hang out with Nat after the memorial but would be back at home that night.
Pip searches Jamieâs room with Connor and Joanna. They canât guess the right password to open up his laptop. Pip finds a scrap of paper in his trash can that says: âHillary Weiseman left 11.â When she Googles the name, she finds a link to an obituary for an 80+-year-old Fairview woman. In Jamieâs nightstand drawer, Pip discovers a watch with a pink band. Neither Connor nor Joanna recognize it.
While Ravi hangs up Missing posters, Pip visits Stanley Forbes at the newspaper to ask if heâll run something about Jamieâs disappearance. He agrees. She then visits Nat at the home of her boyfriend, Luke Eaton. Nat is not happy to see Pip, but she tells her that Jamie took off through the crowd at the memorial because he had seen someone he needed to talk to. She doesnât know who and says she hasnât seen or heard from Jamie since then. Nat also says she hasnât spoken to or texted with Jamie much lately. Then who, Pip wonders, had he been so secretive about texting?
Pipâs neighbor shows her a photo from the memorial in which Jamie is standing in a crowd with a surprised look on his face. Heâs looking at the camera when everyone else is looking away. Whatâor whoâhad caught his attention?
Cara tells Pip that, although she was drunk and only has hazy memories, she thinks she saw Jamie at a high school calamity party right after the memorial. A boy confirms that Jamie was there and says he saw Jamie at 10:32 p.m., talking on the phone. Jamie kept repeating, âI canât do that,â and said something about a child. Until now, that marks the last time Jamie was seen before he disappeared. Pip assumes he was at the party because he followed whoever he spotted at the memorial to that location.
When Pip mentions Jamie working for her mom at the real estate office, Pipâs mom is confused. She says that he was fired two and a half weeks ago for trying to steal the company credit card. His only explanation was that he wouldnât have done it if it werenât a matter of life and death.
Pip goes to the Reynoldsâ home to speak to Connor and his mom. While there, she notices a six-inch chefâs knife is missing from the knife block in their kitchen. It doesnât turn up in a search of the kitchen. Joanna believes she last used it the week beforeâthe same week Jamie went missing.
A girl sends Pip a video from the post-memorial calamity party. It shows Jamie tapping a girl named Stella Chapman on the shoulder. When Pip talks to Stella, Stella says she doesnât know Jamie but that he did tap her. He called her Leila and said they had been texting each other for weeks. Stella was very confused. Pip deduces that âLeilaâ stole a social media profile picture of Stella and has been using it as their own.
A man from the local bookstore contacts Pip, saying he and his friends saw Jamie at 11:40 p.m. on the night he disappeared. He was walking fast away from town down Weevil Road. He and
his friends disagree on which top Jamie was wearing. Two say he had on a burgundy shirt. One says he was wearing a black hoodie.
To try to find Leila, Ravi signs up for the Tinder dating app. He scrolls through the people on the app and finds a profile for âLayla Mead,â who uses edited photos of Stella as her own. Jamie is one of her friends. So is the kidsâ history teacher, Adam Clark. Ravi sends a generic greeting to âLayla,â who replies, âHi, Pip.â The trio is stunned. A second message arrives: Youâre getting closer đ When Pip tries to reply, she gets an error message saying the user cannot be found. All of Laylaâs social media accounts have also been disabled.
Pipâs new neighbors, Charlie and Flora Green, show her a video from their doorbell camera. Itâs a video from a week ago showing Jamie breaking into their house. Only one thing was takenâFloraâs watch. Itâs the same one Pip found in Jamieâs nightstand drawer. Flora says the watch was not expensive, so she canât understand why it would have been taken, especially when more valuable things were in plain sight in the same room.
Pip and Connor confront their teacher, Mr. Clark. He says since heâs new and heâs never taught Stella, he didn’t recognize her edited picture on Laylaâs profile. He chatted with âLaylaâ on social media, and she asked him many questions. She stopped messaging him when he told her what he did for a living.
A boy at school tells Pip she saw Jamie Reynolds at 10:50 p.m. the night of the memorial and calamity party going into Nat da Silvaâs house. She remembers that Nat said he had not come over that night.
Acting on a comment from a Reddit thread about Jamieâs disappearance, Pip and Ravi go to the town cemetery. They locate Hillary Weisemanâs grave. Theyâre surprised when they run into Stanley Forbes, a local reporter who says heâs there to interview the pastor of the church near the cemetery. They ask Stanley about the children listed on a card from a bouquet on Hillaryâs headstone. He says one of themâMary Scytheâworks at the newspaper with him. Harry and Joe Scythe are her sons. Harry is one of the bookstore employees who told Pip about seeing Jamie on the night he disappeared.
Joanna Reynolds tells Pip that Jamie had a black hoodie that she canât find anywhere in the house. If the bookstore employees saw him wearing it, that means he returned to his house between the time he left the calamity party and the time he was seen by the bookstore employees. Although Jamieâs dad, Arthur, had returned to the house about the same time, he never mentioned seeing Jamie then. Joanna also says that while looking for the black hoodie, she found a bloodstained shirt in Jamieâs laundry basket. She didnât remember him injuring himself.
While at the Reynoldsâ house, Pip, Connor, and Joanna figure out the password to Jamieâs computer. They discover Internet searches for âhow to fight,â âcontrolling fathers,â âbrain cancer,â and âhow to make money quickly.â Pip also realizes that Jamie had been wearing a FitBit, which
was GPS-enabled. Although no information from it had been uploaded for the past few days, the Fitbit app shows data for the night he went missing. It shows that his heart rate picked up after 11:40 p.m., indicating he was probably running. Pip is excited because, using the information, she can figure out more details about Jamieâs movements on the night he disappeared.
On Jamieâs laptop, Pip finds messages between him and Layla. Jamie portrays himself as older and more successful than he is in real life. Layla stops messaging him when he confesses that heâs only 24, has a lowly desk job, and lives with his parents.
Pip organizes a group of volunteers to search for Jamie in the forest and fields around the area Jamie was in on the night he vanished. One of the groups discovers the Reynoldsâ missing chefâs knife near the abandoned farmhouse where Becca Bell had hidden Andie Bellâs body for five and a half years. Itâs clean, with no blood on it. Pip calls the police, and Daniel da Silva (Natâs brother) comes to collect it. When Pip mentions Layla Mead to Daniel, he blushes and tells her he has no idea what sheâs talking about.
When Pip and Ravi went inside the abandoned farmhouse, they noticed disturbed dust and food wrappers scattered around. It looked as if someone had been living there. They, Connor, and Cara decide to have a stakeout there. When they arrive, three high schoolers are already there. Pip realizes theyâve interrupted a drug deal of some kind. A white BMW pulls up and then races away. Pip and her friends follow it. Pip recognizes the car as belonging to Nat da Silvaâs boyfriend, Luke Eaton.
Pip interviews Arthur Reynolds, father of Connor and Jamie. He says Jamie had just asked to borrow $900 but wouldnât tell him why. Pip guesses it was for drugs. When Pip questions Nat about a drug connection between Jamie and Luke, she tells Pip to get lost and leave her alone.
The verdict comes back in the Max Hastings trial. He is found not guilty of all charges. Pip is furious.
Pip discovers that the boy who said he saw Jamie going to Natâs house on the night of the memorial lied just to get his name on her podcast.
At school, Pip finds a note in her locker that says: This is your final warning, Pippa. Walk away.
An Internet rumor accuses Pip of making up Jamieâs disappearance to make the second season of her podcast popular. When Ant accuses her of the same thing, Pip pushes him and gets suspended from school for fighting. Ravi comes to see Pip later, and she reacts with anger, (figuratively) pushing him away. He leaves, frustrated with her. Before he exits, he tells her he loves herâthe first time either has said it.
Pip sneaks out of her house and drives to Max Hastingsâ residence. She uploads the audio file she has of him confessing to drugging and raping Becca Bell to the Internet. On his house, she paints, Rapist. I will get you. She also uses a hammer to shatter his windows. Then she drives to Raviâs house. Pip apologizes for being obsessive and angry; Ravi forgives her.
Nat tells Pip she needs to speak to her, so Pip goes to her house. Nat says Luke lied about being home alone on the night Jamie disappeared. Looking through Lukeâs phone, she found texts between him and Layla Mead. He was going to meet her that night. The last text from him to her says: What the fâ, Iâm going to kill you.
Pip and Ravi go to see Luke Eaton. Luke says he loaned Jamie $900 but didnât ask why he needed it. When Luke went to the abandoned farmhouse to meet Layla, Jamie was there instead. Jamie said something that sounded like âchild brown sickâ and then ran into the woods. Luke chased him but didnât catch him.
When Pip and Ravi Google âchild brown sick,â they are led to articles about âChild Brunswick,â the name the media gave to the unnamed child who helped convict Scott Brunswick, a serial killer, of a number of child murders. Because the boyâScottâs sonâwas coerced by his father into helping kidnap his fatherâs victims, he was sentenced to serve five years in a juvenile detention center. When he turned 18, Child Brunswick was given a new identity, and an injunction was placed on the media, preventing them from leaking the information to ensure the young manâs safety. Knowing that Layla Mead was chatting with several local men (Luke Eaton, Jamie Reynolds, Daniel da Silva, etc.) who were the right age to be Child Brunswick, Pip concludes that she was looking for him.
A comment on a Reddit post reminds Pip of Howie Bowers, an inmate at the local prison. She remembers seeing Stanley Forbes meeting with Howie, giving him money, and insisting this was the last time he would do it. Pip realizes that Stanley is the right age to be Child Brunswick. He was giving Howie money to keep him quiet about his real identity.
How did Good Girl, Bad Blood end?
Pip texts Stanley, pretending to be Layla. She says to meet her at the farmhouse that night. Stanley agrees. While Stanley drives to the farmhouse, Ravi and Connor break into his house. They discover that Jamie is there, alive but locked in a room. Jamie tells them to leave because heâs worked out a deal with his captor.
Meanwhile, Stanley arrives at the farmhouse. He tells Pip that Layla asked him to meet her at the farmhouse on the night Jamie disappeared. Instead of Layla, it was Jamie. He lunged at Stanley with a knife, and Stanley pushed him, causing Jamie to hit his head. Stanley took Jamie home and locked him in a room while he decided what to do. The men talked, and Jamie told Stanley he had confronted Stanley because Layla told him to. She had been making him do thingsâsteal a watch she said belonged to her dead mother, give her money for a supposed medical trial (which he left for her in the cemetery), and kill a man she claimed had been stalking her. Layla said she didnât know which of the two men were stalking her. Sheâd invite them both to the farmhouse, where Jamie would say âChild Brunswickâ to them. He should kill whichever one reacted to the words.
After Stanley and Jamie talked, the two men made a deal. They would work together to figure out who Layla really was. Jamie wouldnât tell anyone who Stanley was, and Stanley wouldnât tell the police Jamie had attacked him with a knife. Jamie would stay locked in the bathroom until Stanley knew for sure Jamie wasnât the one pretending to be âLayla.â Although Stanley now trusted Jamie, they still didnât know Laylaâs real identity.
When Pip tells Stanley that Connor and Ravi are at his house and that they broke a window to get inside, Stanley says that the windows are rigged with an alarm that automatically calls the police.
Pip is surprised when her new neighbor, Charlie Green, walks into the farmhouse. He takes Stanleyâs and Pipâs cell phones and then holds a gun on them. Charlie says that he and Flora are the ones pretending to be Layla. His real last name is Nowell, and heâs the twin brother of one of Scott Brunswickâs victims. Heâs been searching for Child Brunswick ever since, desperate for revenge.
Charlie shoots Stanley, then sets the farmhouse on fire. Charlie flees. Pip drags Stanley outside, but he dies soon after. She is taken to the police station, where her clothes are taken, and her hands are tested for gunshot residue to eliminate her as Stanleyâs killer.
Two and a half weeks later, Stanley is laid to rest. A group of protestors shows up at the funeral, yelling at the mourners for honoring a murdererâs accomplice.
A week later, the Reynolds host a barbecue to celebrate Jamieâs safe return. Afterward, Pip Googles Charlie and Flora Green. They had been sighted in Wichita but had not been apprehended.
There you go! That’s what happened in Good Girl, Bad Blood. We hope you enjoyed this Good Girl, Bad Blood summary with spoilers.
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