48 pages • 1 hour read
Holly JacksonKill Joy
Fiction | Novella | 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.
Chapters 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary
Connor chastises Dora for sharing private conversations and admits that while he did say those words, he was merely “blowing off steam” after Reginald Remy denied his time-off request to visit his daughter, whom he rarely sees (56). Connor attempts to turn scrutiny onto Cara’s character by informing everyone that Dora has only worked for the Remy Manor for the past six months, after the previous cook abruptly quit, claiming that someone was threatening her life. Connor implies that Dora is not who she says she is, and Jamie interrupts the group, telling the players that they are about to learn their characters’ biggest secrets.
Pip opens her envelope, learning that Celia is a spy working for the British Secret Service. She is at Remy Manor on a mission to investigate claims that her uncle is a communist sympathizer involved in seditious activity, including making payments to a known communist named Harris Pick. Celia is responsible for breaking into the safe and stealing his checkbook, looking for evidence of the money transfer. The conversation that Ralph overheard was Celia and her handler discussing her findings.
The booklet instructs Pip to lie about her reasons for breaking into the safe if anyone should figure out it was her. She is to claim that Celia was looking for an old photograph of her mother that she believed her uncle kept in there and that Celia only took the checkbook because she wanted to see what payments Reginald was making to other family members because she had never received money from him and was resentful.
Reeling from these revelations, Pip closes the booklet and wonders whether part of Celia’s mission was to “terminate” Reginald for his alleged communist activities (60). She wonders whether she may, in fact, be the murderer after all. Before they continue playing the game, having all read their secrets, Jamie realizes that Ant is missing. Connor goes to look for him, and Pip looks outside, noting that she cannot see anything but the blackness of the night. Pip has the creeping sensation that someone is watching them.
Jamie and Connor look for Ant but still do not find him. The others grow increasingly frantic, realizing that they cannot call Ant because Connor still has all their phones. Jamie insists that this is not part of the gameplay, and just as they are about to begin questioning their next moves, they hear loud and rapid knocking on the windows. Lauren screams as the knocking escalates, but then it stops suddenly, and light from all the outside lights floods the room.
Chapter 8 Summary
Pip sees a silhouette against the light of the motion-activated floodlights and sees that it is Ant playing a prank. Jamie grumbles that they may not be able to finish the game now before everyone leaves, and Connor calls Ant inside. Jamie informs them that in the next round of the game, they are going to “spill some other secrets [they] might know about [their] fellow suspects” (67), and he instructs them to read the next page of their booklets.
Pip learns that in the next round, if anyone says the words “spy” or “spying,” she has to flinch, and she has to call someone a “communist” at least once. She also learns that her character left Reginald’s checkbook in the billiard room. The game prompts Pip to sneak out of the room at some point in that round to retrieve the checkbook. Upon finishing her instructions, Pip feels frustrated at Celia for being a bad spy and leaving evidence lying around, wondering how she can extricate herself from the game long enough to get the checkbook without drawing suspicion.
Connor begins the next round with the revelation that he discovered that Bobby and Lizzie have been having an affair. Lauren, as Lizzie, tries to deny this allegation, calling into question the butler’s hearing. Pip calls Lizzie a “communist” (71) although she realizes that it does not quite work in this context. Lauren goes after Connor, stating that her character has seen the butler twice that weekend crying after reading a piece of paper he is carrying around in his pocket. Connor feigns ignorance, but then Jamie produces the note, which says “Clue #3.”
The note is a written explanation of smallpox disease torn out of a medical journal, explaining symptoms, transmission, and prognosis. While the other players ask Connor why he is carrying this note around with him, Pip wonders if it is a suitable time to try and retrieve the checkbook. Before she can leave, Ant speaks up, exclaiming that he recognizes Dora from somewhere, and Cara lobbies the same accusation at Ant. Jamie forces them to reveal that Dora recognizes Bobby from his visits to the Garza casino, where she saw him alongside the gang and selling cocaine. This not only implicates Bobby in going to the rival casino but also reveals that he has been gambling again. Zach, as Ralph, asks whether their parents knew about this, implying that perhaps their mother found out about Bobby’s gambling and that was why he killed her.
The conversation lulls, and Pip takes the opportunity to pause the game, stating that she needs to use the bathroom. Pip feels nervous as she approaches the closet that has the billiard room sign on it and sees on the ground next to a pile of shoes another note, on which is written “Clue #4.” She stretches out her hand to grab the note, but before she grasps it, someone grabs her from behind.
Chapter 9 Summary
Pip falls and lands on her back, and only then does she see that Cara has followed her, admitting that her game booklet told her that Celia, Pip’s character, would try to escape the room and that she should follow her before Celia could destroy the evidence. Cara grabs the clue and hurries back to the dining room where the others are waiting. Cara opens the note, explaining that it is a checkbook belonging to Reginald Remy, the most recent payment being to someone named Harris Pick in the amount of £150,000.
Zach speaks up in character, revealing that he recognizes the name Harris Pick and that his father fought in the First Boer War alongside Pick. He goes on to say that Reginald always said that Pick saved his life. Upon hearing all of this, Pip realizes that this is proof of Reginald being a communist sympathizer.
Cara interrupts, stating that she saw Celia leaving the study with the checkbook at 5:00 pm and that she must be the one who stole it from the safe. Pip defends herself, stating that she was looking for the photograph of her mother and explaining that she took the checkbook to see how much money Reginal gave to the others. Jamie interrupts, stating that they can now place Celia at the scene of the crime only 15 minutes before it could have first occurred.
He informs everyone that they are close to figuring out the truth and instructs them to lift their plates, under which will be an envelope containing a piece of paper that will let them know whether or not their character is the murderer. Pip anxiously opens her envelope. The note reveals that she is not the murderer, and she feels relieved. Looking around the table, Pip realizes that the murderer could be any one of her friends.
Jamie tells them that there is one final clue that someone has tried to dispose of among the refuse of dinner. Pip thinks and realizes that the pizza boxes are missing. They all go to find them, and Connor lifts a stained piece of paper titled “Final Clue.” Another note signed “RR” is addressed to no one but instructs the addressee to meet RR before dinner because it is “too late to go back after everything we’ve already done […] he does not deserve our sympathy” (85). Lauren points out that because the initials are “RR,” it can only be Ralph or Bobby, and Pip agrees, reminding them that Bobby already left a note signed RR earlier that day. Something about the note bothers Pip, although she cannot fully explain why.
Jamie confirms that there is only one murderer when Cara suggests that Lauren and Ant’s characters may have been working together due to their affair and tells them that it is time to “unmask the killer” (86). The group discusses possible theories as they leave the kitchen, but Pip is silent, combing through her notebook and turning over evidence in her head. She thinks that all signs point to Bobby but that there is almost too much evidence pointing toward him. As Pip begins writing out a list of the characters to begin eliminating them, the room goes black and the music cuts out, the only sound being a piercing scream.
Chapters 7-9 Analysis
The mystery intensifies in these chapters as Pip and the other players get closer to solving the mystery. These chapters introduce a potential complication in Pip’s pursuit of justice as she learns about her character’s secret identity as a spy and the possibility that she might, in fact, be the murderer. Pip’s anxiety increases: “What if she’d been given orders to take Reginald Remy out if she found evidence of his treason?” (60).
Although it’s just a game, Pip is now invested in solving the mystery, and the possibility that she could be the murderer grates against Pip’s own moral compass and The Development of Investigative Skills and Critical Thinking that she is experiencing. The lines between the mystery and reality blur for Pip; she goes so far as to feel genuine guilt when she has to lie to the other players in order to retrieve the evidence: “She hated lying, especially to Cara, who was more of a sister than a friend” (76). Pip’s reaction to viewing the gameplay as “lying” further establishes Pip as someone trustworthy and with a sound moral compass but also as someone who becomes so invested in her pursuits that she sometimes struggles to keep perspective.
When Pip learns that she is not the murderer, her relief is palpable: “She read it again, just to be sure […] She wasn’t the killer, thank god. Celia didn’t do it. She was innocent” (83). Pip inserts herself into the narrative, inhabiting Celia’s character only loosely and growing frustrated with Celia as a character when, for example, she learns that Celia left the evidence of Reginald’s checkbook out in the open: “Why would she leave evidence just lying around? What kind of dumbass spy was Celia Bourne? Pip would never be so stupid. And now she had to go and fix it before she got caught” (69). This quote illustrates the distance that Pip has put between herself and Celia as a character, no longer even pretending to identify with the character and instead inhabiting the mystery as herself.
As the mystery in the game intensifies, so does the overall mood of the evening, particularly in the scene when Ant plays a prank on everyone by hiding outside and banging on the windows. Their reactions illustrate The Lasting Impacts of Traumatic Events, in this case Andie Bell’s murder: “Pip couldn’t see anything. […] All she saw was their own reflection, their fear-widened eyes. They were blind in here. Trapped. And someone was out there, someone who could see everything” (64). There is a sense of foreboding as Pip describes her and her friends as “trapped,” watched by some unknown and unseen threat.
Although a relatively harmless prank, this scene is important to the parallel narrative of Pip’s interest in Andie’s murder and Sal Singh’s death by suicide. Pip describes feeling like there is an unknown, threatening entity outside. If Sal had truly murdered Andie, the threat would be nonexistent, and yet there is a looming threatening energy that permeates the entire evening, implying that the real threat—and Andie’s real killer—may still be out there somewhere, stalking the unsuspecting residents of Fairview.
As this section draws to a close, Jamie informs everyone that they are nearing the end of the game. Pip begins “frantically” flipping through the copious notes she has taken during the game (87), trying to piece together her final theory. When she arrives at the conclusion that most of the clues are pointing toward Ant’s character, Bobby, she hesitates to condemn him outright: “Since the very beginning so many of the clues had cast deep shadows over him. Almost too many, and something about it didn’t feel right. She was missing something” (87). This quote illustrates how far Pip’s investigative skills have come. Whereas earlier, she was quick to accuse Bobby due to her own dislike of Ant and his character’s shady attributes, now she pauses, her gut telling her that she is missing a key piece of the puzzle. This hesitation emphasizes Pip’s skills as an investigator and her ability to think critically, which will come to full fruition in the last section of the novel.
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