Where to Start with Holly Jackson: A Reading Guide

Holly Jackson (born 1992) is the British young adult thriller author whose debut novel A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (2019) became one of the most discussed YA books of the 2020s — driven by BookTok, true crime podcast culture, and a mystery structure more sophisticated than most adult crime fiction. The Pip Fitz-Amobi trilogy has sold millions of copies worldwide; Jackson has become one of the defining voices of YA thriller fiction for a generation raised on Serial, My Favourite Murder, and true crime as entertainment. Her work combines the mechanics of classic mystery plotting with a sharp awareness of how contemporary teenage girls consume and discuss crime.

Where to Start: A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (2019)

The essential Jackson — and the right starting point for the series. Pip Fitz-Amobi is a methodical, ambitious high schooler in the small English town of Fairbury who decides to reinvestigate the five-year-old murder of Andie Bell for her senior capstone project. The case: popular girl Andie disappeared; her boyfriend Sal Singh was identified as the killer and found dead shortly after. The case was closed. Pip believes the wrong person was blamed and sets out to prove it — conducting interviews, creating evidence maps, and documenting everything as a podcast.

Jackson’s structure is brilliant: the true crime podcast format gives Pip an organizing principle that makes her investigative steps feel both plausible and entertaining. The mystery is genuinely well-constructed — the solution is surprising but entirely fair, and the journey to it involves real suspects and real misdirection. The small-town setting (everyone knows everyone; secrets are fragile) creates compression.

The novel is also genuinely funny in places — Pip’s combination of intelligence and social awkwardness is endearing without being clichéd — and the friendship dynamics are observed with precision. The ending sets up the second book while providing satisfying closure on the first’s central mystery.

Good Girl Bad Blood (2021)

The second novel — Pip’s podcast from the first case has become a hit, and when her friend Jamie’s brother disappears under suspicious circumstances, she investigates again. The public nature of her first investigation complicates the second; the novel develops Pip’s psychological relationship with investigation and begins to explore the cost of her obsession. Darker than the first; the missing persons case involves more ambiguity about who is a victim and who is a perpetrator.

As Good As Dead (2021)

The trilogy’s conclusion — and its darkest, most psychologically intense book. Pip has been receiving threatening messages that connect back to the events of the first two investigations. As Good As Dead moves firmly into thriller territory; the plot mechanisms are more extreme than the first two books, and the novel’s examination of what investigation does to the investigator — the paranoia, the compulsion, the moral compromises — reaches its full depth here. A brave and unusual conclusion to a YA series.

Five Survive (2022)

Jackson’s standalone thriller — eight teenagers, a broken-down RV, a sniper, and a single night. Entirely separate from the Pip trilogy; faster-paced and more purely plot-driven. Best for readers who have finished the Pip books and want more Jackson, or for readers who want something shorter and more action-focused than the trilogy.

Reading Holly Jackson

Begin with A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder — the trilogy must be read in order, and the first book establishes characters and relationships that the subsequent books build on. Read all three Pip books before Five Survive. The trilogy is complete with a definitive ending; the series is among the best YA thriller writing of its generation.