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.
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BetaPart 1, Chapters 8-14Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1, Chapters 8-11 Summary
Pip immediately creates a spreadsheet marking the date of the first harassing messages and the escalating attacks ever since. They began in April and have been increasing in frequency up until the present day in August.
During her next run, Pip finds a crumpled piece of duct tape stuck to her shoe. As she resumes her run, she sees Max Hastings jogging on the other side of the street. Pip has a brief, vivid fantasy of attacking Max. She pictures herself breaking his nose and shoving him in front of an oncoming truck. By the time she snaps out of her vision, Max has already moved down the street. Still lost in thought, Pip approaches her house and finds a chalk message on the sidewalk: “DEAD GIRL WALKING” (66). She takes a photo of the message before going inside. When Ravi arrives, she shows him the message and the other evidence. He convinces her to report the harassment to the police.
Pip loathes local law enforcement because they impeded her in two previous cases. She especially dislikes Detective Hawkins but goes to see him anyway. After being presented with all her evidence, Hawkins doesn’t seem overly concerned. He assumes the culprit is one of the suspects from her previous investigations trying to get even. Hawkins says, “This is the kind of thing that happens when you make yourself a public figure” (77). Pip’s podcast has 300,000 listeners, and trolls are destructive. Realizing that her conversation with the detective is useless, Pip leaves angrily. Back at home, she lists all the people who might have a grudge against her. When she comes up with 12 names, Pip asks, “Is it normal for one person to have this many enemies? I’m the problem, aren’t I?” (84).
That night, Pip takes another Xanax to try to sleep but awakens from an upsetting dream. She realizes she’s almost used up her stash of tranquilizers and will have to buy more. The one thought that comforts her is that the stalker will be her next case. If she can apprehend this person, she believes her life will be fixed, and she can return to normal.
Part 1, Chapters 12-14 Summary
When Ravi arrives the next morning, Pip informs him that she’s been watching the driveway all night to see if anybody appears. She even left ham and chunks of bread as bait to prove that no neighborhood cats or pigeons are around. All she attracts is a crow. Ravi insists that they should go out for a walk to clear Pip’s head. During this time, they have a brief altercation with two schoolmates whom Pip alienated during her previous podcast.
As she and Ravi return home, they find three new chalk figures in the driveway, close to the house. The stalker must have drawn these after the couple left. Pip also finds two more stick figures crawling up the wall near the front door as if trying to reach her upstairs bedroom. Pip and Ravi go upstairs to research possible stalker leads on Pip’s computer.
Her online searches lead to the DT Killer, who murdered five women six years earlier. Supposedly, the killer confessed and was safely locked in prison. He was called the DT, or Duct Tape, Killer because he bound his victims with duct tape and also wrapped their entire heads with the tape before strangling them. A hatred of women appeared to be the motive. A relative of one of the victims mentioned dead pigeons and chalk drawings being left near her residence before the attack.
Pip immediately recognizes the parallel. She is receiving the same mementos and five figures representing five victims. The final victim was killed on the same night that Andie Bell died. Her case was the first that Pip’s podcast covered. Even more unnerving is the next fact that Pip discovers. Billy Karras, the supposed murderer, says that his confession was extorted under duress. His mother is trying to get enough signatures on a petition to appeal the conviction. Pip decides that this will be her next podcast project: “Her test. Her trial. Her final judgment. Save herself to save herself. That was all still true. Even more so if there was that chance, that possibility, that there was a right man and a wrong man” (119).
Chapters 8-14 Analysis
Pip’s fragile emotional state becomes apparent in this segment, but it can only be understood in the context of her previous investigations. She is bedeviled by the need for closure, but all she has gotten so far is Justice Denied. Pip herself recognizes the downward spiral that has taken hold of her:
She was getting worse; she could step outside of herself and recognize that. The panic attacks, the pills, the rage so hot it might just burn the world down with it. She was slipping ever further from that normal life she was so desperate to crawl back to (65).
Pip concludes that the only way to fix herself is to find a new investigation to solve. Initially, she was going to research a Jane Doe case, but lately, she has become fixated on Max as the source of all her woes. She even briefly fantasizes about breaking his nose and shoving him in front of an oncoming truck. Such dark thoughts point to rage and the need for relief from it. As Pip’s stalker becomes bolder, she concludes that neither Jane Doe nor Max will sufficiently pull her out of her personal hell, but her stalker might:
She did have a stalker. And now that she thought it through, maybe this could be it: exactly what she needed. Not Jane Doe, but this. One more case, the right one, and opportunity had handed it right to her. The universe might have aligned, for once, in her favor (79).
Pip’s previous investigations left her unsatisfied, not simply because the justice system ruled against her. She also had to deal with culprits who weren’t totally evil. Elliot Ward acted out of panic to save his own life. Charlie Green was trying to get justice for his dead sister. Stanley Forbes never killed anyone but was forced to lure victims so his father could kill them. Pip concludes that none of these individuals was totally evil. However, when she learns that the DT Killer is her probable stalker, she has found the perfect adversary:
This was how she would make herself fine again. And the scarier it got, the more perfect the fit. Out of the gray area, into something she could comprehend, something she could live with. Black and white. Good and bad (101).
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