Not a book I chose for myself, as it was a gift. But it was chosen for me, I think on the basis that I have taken a liking to Agatha Christie mysteries in the last year.
Did I enjoy it? Yes. It took me a long time to get through it, but I think that's more because I was tired and lacking focus to sit down and read. It made a change to read a book slowly and not go through it in such a short time. Reading fast and reading slow both have their pros and cons.
This is an unusual setting for a murder mystery. The main character, Pippa Fitz-Amobi, is a student and has chosen a local murder from five years ago as the subject for her EPQ. Pippa explains what that is in the plot, but I shamefully can't remember. I'm just going to say that it's obviously an important part of the qualifications she is doing as she looks towards going to university.
From the start, you can tell Pippa's breaking the rules. There's a statement from one of her tutors about how she mustn't make contact with either family, yet it's one of the first things she does. She's gone beyond the original aims already and there's something about the whole thing for her which is about more than getting a grade.
Why, exactly, has Pippa chosen such a sensitive topic? That's actually explained, relatively early. That she knew the supposed murderer, vaguely, but can't believe he was a bad guy. From what she says about the case, something definitely doesn't add up. Pippa's main subject is supposed to be about how the media influenced the public and the police decision on Sal Singh's guilt.
This is interesting because it's very real and when Pippa looks into the media side of things, and the reporter, there was definitely something about minor details that people put together and then didn't really investigate more deeply. There was a lot of unjustified prejudice in there and the portrayal of Sal and Andie as individuals were warped.
As Pippa investigated, she started to establish that the facts might have been the other way around.
The character of Ravi was interesting and his relationship and banter between him and Pip. Parts of the story are dark, and things do take quite a sinister and personal turn for Pip, so it was good to have the lighter bits with Ravi added in. There's something very heart warming about the Singh's and Pippa's family. Where everyone shuns them for what happened with Sal, Pip and her family, especially her mother, don't.
Anyone can see that Pip is treading an extremely dangerous line. As she investigates, she gets involved with riskier things, and brings people close to her into the whole event, risking her relationship with them and deeply upsetting the balance of life. She puts herself in very dangerous and kind of stupid positions, multiple times, considering she's really just a school kid. A smart one, but not exactly invincible.
Yet, along the way, she also finds justice. Although she upsets a lot of people's lives, and her own, she also calls out a lot of people and the things that they did. Things that were very wrong and that they justified in their own way for various reasons.
Pip is almost super human because she seems to do quite a lot with her time. She falls behind on some of her work because of the investigation, but she still makes some impressive achievements.
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