51 pages • 1 hour read
Holly JacksonAs Good As Dead
Fiction | Novel | 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.
Summary
Background
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
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Important Quotes
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BetaPart 2, Chapters 30-35Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2, Chapters 30-31 Summary
It’s 6:47 on an August evening, and Pip is reeling from realizing she has just killed Jason Bell. She knows that going to the police is out of the question because they won’t believe her. Pip feels that she needs Ravi to help her get through this ordeal. Remembering that Jason has an untraceable burner phone, she calls Ravi and tells him to come to Green Scene without using his GPS while keeping to the backroads.
When Ravi arrives, he initially tries to convince Pip to go to the police, but she says,
‘The DT Killer is already in prison,’ Pip repeated, watching his eyes, waiting for him to understand. ‘Jason Bell was a respectable man. A managing director of a midsize company, and no one has a bad word to say about him’ (259).
They decide to stage a murder scene for a different time of death. Pip believes that cooling Jason’s body and then warming it will throw off the medical examiner’s estimate by several hours. She also knows that the police will keep looking for a culprit, so Pip decides to give them one—Max Hastings.
As they plan out the steps to stage the crime and establish their own alibis, Ravi says, “Jason killed five women; he would have killed you. He started everything that led to Andie and Sal dying. So did Max. Max will carry on hurting people if we do nothing. We know that. They deserve this, both of them” (266).
Pip and Ravi decide to cool Jason’s body by using the air conditioner in his car for a few hours. They wrap him in a tarp and load him inside with the engine running. Because it is the weekend, nobody will be coming to the warehouse until Monday, so the pair has enough time to set everything up the way it will need to appear to the police.
Part 2, Chapters 32-35 Summary
Later, the couple drives back to town to establish separate alibis. Ravi will make sure to be seen picking up his cousin in Stamford. Then, they’ll go to a restaurant with video cameras and pay for their food using a credit card. All this will be timestamped. Ravi will also place calls and take videos with his cousin to solidify his alibi.
Pip slips into her house, hoping her parents don’t notice her blood-spattered clothing. She goes upstairs to shower and soaks all her clothes and shoes in a bucket of bleach. After changing, she announces that she’s going out and promises to be back by 11:30. It’s already 8:30, and Pip has many more tasks to complete that evening.
Pip’s first stop is to visit Luke Eaton, the drug dealer. He says he still doesn’t have any Xanax, but Pip says she needs something stronger to sleep to put her out completely. Luke gives her two small baggies of Rohypnol. This is the date-rape drug that Max Hastings used on his many victims.
Pip’s second stop is the Reynolds house. In her previous season’s podcast, she helped Connor Reynolds find his missing brother Jamie. Jamie is now dating Pip’s friend Nat. She finds all three at home and explains that she needs their help with something, but she can’t tell them all the details. When Nat finds out that the plan involves Max, she readily agrees. She was one of his former rape victims and testified at his trial to no avail.
The next stop is Max’s house. He is alone playing video games because his family is out of town. Pip disables the outdoor video cameras by covering them with duct tape. Then, she moves to the back of the house to search for a way in. Nat is supposed to create a diversion by knocking on the door. When Max rises to answer, Pip makes her move and slips inside through an unlocked back entrance.
Chapters 30-35 Analysis
This segment alters the narrative trajectory dramatically. Up to this point in the novel, the book is essentially a generic female-in-jeopardy mystery. Once Pip kills her assailant, it becomes something quite different. The reader has already been given enough context to understand Pip’s rage at the law-and-order apparatus. She has also shown good reason to expect that nobody will believe her. These facts make her actions understandable. Jason Bell’s despicable behavior then makes his murder justifiable. The rest of the segment principally focuses on the theme of Justice Denied because it motivates all of Pip’s actions from this point forward.
When Pip enlists Ravi’s help to stage the murder scene, he tries arguing for a more conventional resolution by going to the police. Pip has a ready answer for him: “‘The DT Killer is already in prison,’ Pip repeated, watching his eyes, waiting for him to understand. ‘Jason Bell was a respectable man. A managing director of a midsize company, and no one has a bad word to say about him’” (259).
Jason’s reputation will carry more weight with the authorities than the reality of what he tried to do to Pip. As she previously stated, nobody will listen to her: “‘It doesn’t matter what the truth is,’ Pip said. ‘What matters is a narrative they will find acceptable. Believable. And they won’t believe my narrative’” (259).
Even though the theme of Justice Denied retains the focus, Pip is now prepared to stand the justice system on its head. She knows how to stage a scene that will fit the narrative the authorities are prepared to accept. It must be textbook perfect. She tells Ravi:
If we can manipulate those three factors, if we can delay them, we can make the medical examiner think he died hours after he did. And in that time window, you and I can have solid alibis, separately, with people and cameras and an undeniable evidence trail (262).
Pip also recognizes the need to feed the police a perpetrator. In giving them Max, she will finally see justice done instead of justice denied.
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