In As Good as Dead, the final chapter of the A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder trilogy, Fairview’s familiar faces are pushed past their breaking points. The story traces how trauma, fear, and a corrupted system warp once-straight moral lines, forcing characters to choose between the law and their own code. As the truth turns darker, loyalty becomes both a refuge and a weapon.
Main Characters
Pippa "Pip" Fitz-Amobi
Pippa "Pip" Fitz-Amobi steps into this finale no longer a star student sleuth but a traumatized survivor confronting panic, insomnia, and paranoia as a stalker closes in. Disillusioned by the justice system’s failures—most notably after Max Hastings’s acquittal—she deploys her brilliance and meticulous planning to keep herself and those she loves safe, even if it means crossing the line. Anchored by Ravi Singh yet increasingly isolated, Pip shifts from investigator to perpetrator when Jason Bell abducts her and she kills him to survive. Instead of confessing, she orchestrates a ruthless cover-up, framing Max, and ultimately accepts a morally gray identity to protect her circle and secure the only justice she still believes in.
Jason Bell
Jason Bell hides in plain sight as a respectable businessman and grieving father while secretly operating as the “DT Killer,” preying on young women he deems “too loud.” He manipulates those around him, even leveraging associates inside the police orbit, and takes a particular pleasure in psychological terror—escalating from grisly messages to abduction and torture. His fixation on silencing Pip turns him into her would-be executioner, but she escapes and kills him, ending his reign of terror. Jason’s death becomes the pivot point of the novel, setting off Pip’s most daring—and damning—investigation as she engineers the perfect fall guy.
Max Hastings
Max Hastings embodies systemic failure: a smug, unrepentant predator who walks free and then uses legal threats to harass Pip. Arrogant and emboldened by his acquittal, he looms as a chilling reminder that the truth doesn’t always matter in court. When Pip decides to frame him for Jason’s murder, she capitalizes on his patterns, alibi gaps, and public reputation to create an airtight illusion of guilt. Max’s arrest delivers the punishment he evaded for years—though not for the crime he actually committed—underscoring the novel’s bleak calculus of justice.
Supporting Characters
Ravi Singh
Ravi Singh is Pip’s steadfast boyfriend and moral ballast, offering tenderness and calm as her world fractures. When Pip confesses to killing Jason, Ravi chooses love and loyalty over law, becoming her co-conspirator and sacrificing his innocence to save hers. Their bond is the emotional core of the book, complicating the line between devotion and complicity.
Detective Richard Hawkins
Detective Richard Hawkins represents the justice system’s dismissive, skeptical face, repeatedly minimizing Pip’s fears and pushing her further from official help. He ultimately follows the breadcrumbs she lays and arrests Max, yet leaves Pip with a chilling, insinuating parting comment that suggests suspicion without proof. Hawkins stands as both catalyst and cautionary emblem of institutional failure.
Charlie Green
Charlie Green, a fugitive from Pip’s past, operates as her spectral moral compass—proof that vigilante justice can feel righteous and ruinous at once. His philosophy haunts Pip as she contemplates extra-legal action, but his capture removes the one person who might have understood her darkest choices. His absence forces Pip to own her decisions without guidance.
Cara Ward
Cara Ward is Pip’s fiercely loyal best friend, offering unconditional support as Pip spirals. Unaware of the full truth, she becomes a crucial alibi the night of Jason’s death, with her sister Naomi helping cement Pip’s cover story. Cara’s unquestioning trust shows how friendship can protect—and endanger.
Andie Bell
Andie Bell, present only through evidence and memory, reframes the trilogy’s origin when Pip discovers Andie knew her father was the DT Killer. Her secret plan to escape and shield her sister recasts Andie not as a “bad girl” but a terrified, resourceful survivor. Andie’s truth becomes the final key that unmasks Jason and brings the series full circle.
Minor Characters
- Victor Fitz-Amobi, Leanne Fitz-Amobi, and Josh Fitz-Amobi: Pip’s loving family, a fragile reminder of normalcy and innocence that she fights to protect even as she drifts away from it.
- Nat da Silva, Jamie Reynolds, and Connor Reynolds: Loyal friends who, out of trust in Pip, unknowingly aid her plan—Nat distracts Max while Jamie and Connor plant evidence to seal his fate.
- Billy Karras: Wrongly convicted as the DT Killer, his case is a quiet victory for real justice once the truth about Jason emerges.
- Maria Karras: Billy’s mother, whose plea to Pip helps reopen the trail that leads to Jason.
- Becca Bell: Andie’s younger sister, imprisoned, who gives Pip the clue to access Andie’s hidden email and unlocks the final revelation.
- Luke Eaton: Small-time dealer who supplies Xanax to Pip and Rohypnol to others, linking the town’s ongoing predation to Max’s past.
- Daniel da Silva: A manipulated employee who unwittingly feeds Jason information, showing how easily a predator exploits proximity.
- Naomi Ward: Cara’s sister and unknowing accomplice, helping establish Pip’s alibi on the night everything changes.
Character Relationships & Dynamics
Pip and Ravi form the novel’s beating heart: a partnership sustained by love and tested by crime. Ravi becomes the only person who fully sees Pip—the fear, the rage, the resolve—and chooses to stand beside her, even as that choice entangles him in the morally unforgivable. Their intimacy turns into an oath: protect each other at any cost.
Against them stands the Bell family’s shadow. Jason’s respectable façade masks the DT Killer, and his fixation on silencing Pip culminates in her most harrowing trial and irreversible act. Andie’s hidden knowledge and Becca’s imprisonment reveal a family corroded by terror and secrets; when the truth finally surfaces, it retroactively rewrites the trilogy’s earliest mysteries and clears the path to Billy Karras’s exoneration.
Pip’s adversarial dance with Max is a war of narratives: his courtroom victory versus her forensic meticulousness. Unable to rely on the law, she weaponizes his history, public perception, and routine to script a new story that ends with his arrest. It’s a revenge plot that doubles as an indictment of a system that failed his victims—and that is precisely why it works.
Around Pip are concentric circles of loyalty and law. Cara, Nat, Jamie, and Connor form the “Good Girl” crew whose trust becomes the infrastructure of Pip’s alibi and evidence trail; their faith in her blurs the line between friendship and complicity. On the other side stands Detective Hawkins and the institutions he represents—slow to listen, quick to dismiss—pushing Pip toward vigilantism even as he ultimately follows her planted breadcrumbs. The result is a town split between those who believe justice is what the law says it is and those who believe justice is what you make it when the law refuses to hear you.