What happened in Good Girl Bad Blood by Holly Jackson

The basics

Title: Good Girl Bad Blood

Author: Holly Jackson

Series: A Good Girl's Guide to Murder #2

- A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (2019)
- Good Girl, Bad Blood (2020)
- As Good As Dead (2021)

Add it: Goodreads

Goodreads Summary:

Pip is not a detective anymore.

With the help of Ravi Singh, she released a true-crime podcast about the murder case they solved together last year. The podcast has gone viral, yet Pip insists her investigating days are behind her.

But she will have to break that promise when someone she knows goes missing. Jamie Reynolds has disappeared, on the very same night the town hosted a memorial for the sixth-year anniversary of the deaths of Andie Bell and Sal Singh.

The police won't do anything about it. And if they won't look for Jamie then Pip will, uncovering more of her town's dark secrets along the way... and this time everyone is listening. But will she find him before it's too late?

Here is a spoiler summary of what happened in Good Girl Bad Blood by Holly Jackson to help refresh your memory before you read the sequel.

What happened in Good Girl Bad Blood?

Note: Some locations may be different, as the UK and US editions have some differences. The UK edition of the book is set in Buckinghamshire, England, and that is the version that has been recapped. All plot elements should remain the same.

• Pip now has a very popular podcast called A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, which covers the events from the first book in Pip’s own words. Fans are keen for her to do a season two, but Pip insists she’s now out of the investigating game because it was dangerous for her family.
• Max Hastings is currently on trial for drugging and assaulting girls at parties.
• The people of Little Kilton hold a memorial for Sal and Andie now that the case has been solved and Mr Ward has been put away.
• After the memorial, Connor comes to Pip’s door very upset. He says his brother Jamie is missing and he wants Pip’s help to find him. The police won’t help because Jamie has run off before and they think he’s just hiding out again.
• Pip goes to Amersham police station to tr to convince DI Hawkins to look into the case further. He won’t. Pip calls Connor and says she’ll take on the case.
• Pip speaks to Connor and his mother, Joanna. Connor’s father refuses to have anything to do with the investigation, which is sus, but Joanna says he’s just angry.
• The interviews reveal that Jamie has a huge crush on Nat (who has a boyfriend btw), he argued a lot with his father, and he went missing during the memorial. Joanna also tried to send Jamie a text at 12.30am, but it was undelivered, meaning his phone had been off since at least then.
• Pip tries to get into Jamie’s computer but she can’t figure out the password. They do, however, find a note saying Hillary F. Weiseman left 11 which doesn’t seem to mean anything right now.
• Pip and the other start putting out missing posters.
• Pip goes to see Stanley Forbes at the paper. He seems nervous. He agrees to put something in the paper about Jamie’s disappearance.
• Pip goes to see Nat and meets her boyfriend, Luke. He’s a bit of a knob. Nat starts to get paranoid that Pip suspects her. Luke says he wasn’t at the memorial (he claims he didn’t leave the house on Friday at all but Nat’s expression may say otherwise), and they kick Pip out.
• Gail Yardley sends Pip a photo with Jamie in the background, which was taken at 8.30pm.
• Pip figures out, from all of this, that Jamie must have been distracted by something because he was meant to go to Nat’s but didn’t show. The photo makes him seem nervous or anxious too.
• Cara says she thinks she saw Jamie at the calamity party, but she was a bit too drunk to say for sure. This is weird because it was a party for 18 year olds and Jamie would have been 24 at the time.
• Pip gets the host’s (Stephen’s) number off her friends. Pip asks Stephen if he remembers Jamie being at the party and Stephen thinks he saw him around 9pm or 10pm.
• Pip sends out a group message asking for photos from the calamity party. People start to send them.
• Someone called George tells Pip about how he saw Jamie at the party at around 10.30pm but he walked off muttering about a child or something.
• Pip finds evidence of Jamie being at the party in some Snapchat stories. She figures out he left the house at 9.56pm.
• Pip sees a photo of Max Hastings at the memorial and Ravi gets understandably upset.
• Pip’s mum finds out that Pip is investigating Jamie’s disappearance. Pip’s mum also says she knows something about Jamie. It turns out he was still telling Joanna he was working at Pip’s mum’s agency. He wasn’t. He was fired because he tried to take the company credit card to use on… something.
• Pip notices that one of the knives at Connor and Jamie’s house is missing.
• Pip speaks to Stella, who says that Jamie approached her and called her Leila. Turns out that someone must have been catfishing Jamie, and now he’s missing. Very weird.
• Someone called Harry who works at the local bookshop emails Pip and tells her he saw Jamie walk by on Friday night at 11.40pm, up along Wyvil Road.
• Ravi returns from Max Hasting’s trial and says they’re doing a good job of making him sound sympathetic.
• Pip, Connor, and Ravi create a Tinder account to look up this Leila person. They find a profile of someone nearby for someone called Layla Mead and it links to her Instagram. Which their new history teacher follows.
• They message Layla and “she” says “Hello Pip. You’re getting closer.” Which is… creepy.
• Layla’s accounts then get deactivated.
• Pip’s neighbours show her their CCTV footage which shows Jamie entering their house. He apparently took a watch from them.
• Pip asks the new teacher about Layla. He says she ghosted him after he told her he’s a teacher.
• Tom tells Pip he saw Jamie go into Nat’s house after the calamity party.
• Thanks to a fan, Pip finds Hillary F Weiseman. She’s buried in a local graveyard.
• Pip gets onto Jamie’s computer and she’s able to track his movements using his Fitbit tracker. She figures he can’t have walked more than a mile or so, which gives her a radius. Especially as Connor figures the eye witnesses who saw him in a black hoodie could be correct, and Jamie was walking in the opposite direction than previously thought.
• Pip also reads Jamie’s messages to Layla. Jamie had lied to “Layla” and told her he was turning 30. He later admitted to lying, and Layla took ages to respond. Eventually Layla asked Jamie if he’d do anything for her and he said he would, and the conversation moved to Whatsapp.
• Pip organises a search through the woods. Cara’s team finds something and calls Pip over to the farmhouse. They think they’ve found the missing knife, so Pip calls the police.
• Pip plans to hold a stakeout at the farmhouse. But when the group gets there, Robin is already hanging out and waiting for someone, possibly his dealer. Someone pulls up in a car and Pip and the gang speed off. They’re chased by a BMW, which Pip thinks belongs to Luke, Nat’s boyfriend.
• Joanna hears on the news that a body was found on the A413. It isn’t Jamie, thankfully.
• Arthur, Jamie’s father, speaks to Pip and admits he’s scared for his son. He says that Jamie asked to borrow £900. Funnily enough, Robin let slip that Luke lost £900 last week…
• Pip tries to speak to Nat again but Nat refuses.
• Max Hastings is found not guilty, which is gross. Pip goes to tell Nat, who is devastated.
• Pip asks Tom why he lied to her about seeing Jamie. He wanted internet fame so Pip pours a drink over his head.
  An article comes out about Pip and her podcast, claiming that Jamie’s disappearance is a set up. Ant, one of Pip’s supposed friends, agrees it all seems very convenient.
• Pip gets suspended for screaming at Ant.
• Pip sees a photo of Max Hastings celebrating his victory, and feels even worse. She decides to get her revenge on him by vandalising his house. She also uploads an audio file of Max admitting his guilt.
• Nat asks to speak to Pip about Jamie. She says her boyfriend Luke has been talking to Layla Mead and he was seeing her the night Jamie disappeared. Nat shows Pip the messages between Luke and Layla, Luke seemed very angry after supposedly meeting up with her.
• Pip talks to Luke and asks why Jamie owes him £900. It’s because Luke lent it to Jamie. Luke admits to going to meet Layla, and then he says that Layla is Jamie. Which obviously does not make sense.
• After this conversation, Pip tries to figure out what Jamie could possibly have been talking about when he said “child broomstick” to Luke. She Googles a few things and finds Child Brunswick, who was the child in the Scott Brunswick case. Scott Brunswick made his son lure out child victims in Margate, Kent.
• Pip figures that Jamie was looking for Child Brunswick, and Layla possibly is too.
• There’s a subreddit dedicated to finding Child Brunswick, who has been moved about under witness protection. It’s rumoured that he’s in Little Kilton.
• After some reading, Pip learns that Howie, the dealer, knew Child Brunswick and has probably been mouthing off. Pip thinks Child Brunswick is Stanley Forbes.
• Pip heads to the farmhouse, pretending to Stanley that she’s Layla, and the others head to Stanley’s. They find Jamie there and they get him out. Jamie says he made a deal with Stanley and the others should leave.
• Stanley sees Pip at the farmhouse and thinks she’s Layla but she’s obviously not. Pip reassures him that she’s not trying to blackmail him.
• Pip promises to help Stanley.
• Pip’s neighbours, Charlie and Flora show up. Turns out they’ve been searching for Child Brunswick. They kill Stanley ☹
• Pip attends Stanley’s funeral.
• Charlie and Flora are now on the run.

That’s what happened in Good Girl Bad Blood! Check out our recap list for more recaps. If you can’t find what you need, you can request a recap from us!

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Other recaps for this series:

• A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder #1)