Pippa Fitz-Amobi is a fictional character, but the way she approaches truth has profoundly shaped how I understand investigative storytelling.
In A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, Pippa is a high school student who decides to investigate a local murder for her senior project. Five years earlier, a popular girl named Andie Bell was murdered, and the police quickly blamed her boyfriend, Sal Singh, who supposedly committed suicide afterward.
The case was closed, and most people believe it’s solved.
Pippa, however, refuses to accept the official story. Through interviews, research, and careful documentation, she uncovers inconsistencies, hidden secrets, and lies that others overlooked—risking her safety and facing scrutiny in the process.
She does not begin with heroism or certainty.
She begins with doubt, asking questions that others have long stopped asking.
In doing so, she challenges the comfort of settled narratives and exposes how easily silence can be mistaken for truth. That instinct—to resist easy conclusions and revisit what has been accepted as fact—lies at the heart of investigative journalism.
What makes Pippa compelling is not simply her intelligence, but her discipline.
For example, in A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, Pippa’s careful digging reveals that Andie Bell had a second phone and a secret involvement in drug dealings—details the initial investigation overlooked—that help her uncover new leads and challenge the original conclusion about Sal Singh’s guilt.
She records interviews carefully, cross-checks accounts that contradict one another, and documents even the smallest inconsistencies rather than dismissing them. When sources misremember or withhold information, she does not force coherence where it does not exist; she lets uncertainty remain until evidence clarifies it.
These habits mirror the foundations of responsible investigative reporting, and seeing them reflected in fiction made the craft feel both rigorous and intentional.
They are the same principles I try to apply in my own reporting—slowing down interviews, returning to sources for clarification, and resisting the urge to shape a story before the facts justify it.
Pippa’s investigations are also grounded in care. She centres her stories around people rather than outcomes, treating them not as puzzles to be solved, but as lived experiences shaped by power, silence, and loss.
She listens to those who were dismissed by authorities and takes seriously voices that were previously ignored, particularly when institutional narratives failed them.
This framing reshaped how I think about journalism’s purpose.
Investigative reporting is not only about exposing wrongdoing, but about whose experiences are deemed credible and whose pain is allowed to matter. That understanding informs the kinds of stories I am drawn to—stories that question dominant narratives and make space for voices that are often marginalized or overlooked.
Beyond the method, Pippa’s story resonates because of what she represents. She is a young woman who insists on taking her own questions seriously in environments that often underestimate her, dismiss her concerns, or frame her persistence as an inconvenience.
In doing so, she models a form of intellectual confidence that is quietly radical—especially for young women learning to trust their instincts in spaces shaped by authority and power.
Pippa Fitz-Amobi is why I love investigative storytelling. She reminds me that truth is rarely convenient, that silence is rarely neutral, and that asking difficult questions can be an act of responsibility.
Even when doubt is present, even when authority resists scrutiny, choosing to ask questions matters.
The belief that one voice, grounded in care and evidence, can make a difference is why she continues to inspire me and why I want to pursue this type of work.