As Good As Dead

Eighteen-year-old Pippa Fitz-Amobi (aka Pip) lives in the Connecticut town of Fairview. She produces a podcast that has helped solve several murders in her small town, but the experience has affected Pip’s mental health. She suffers frequent flashbacks to earlier murder victims and her involvement in bringing their killers to justice. One day, Pip finds a decapitated dead pigeon in her driveway as she is about to accompany her stepfather, who is a lawyer, to his office in New York. There, she will meet with attorneys trying to negotiate a settlement in a lawsuit.

Months earlier, Pip accused a local rich boy named Max Hastings of date rape and published his recorded confession on her podcast. Pip knows Max date-raped two fellow students the year before and got him to confess the crime on tape. However, when he stands trial, he is acquitted. Now, he claims that Pip has damaged his chances of getting a good job because of her slanderous accusations.

Max’s lawyer proposes to settle for $7,000 in damages, a published apology to Pip’s podcast listeners, and an admission that the recording she broadcast was false. Pip is furious and refuses the terms of the deal. She says,