Netflix’s darkly comedic thriller blends hard-boiled British noir with teen dramedy
The classic British crime drama takes a young adult turn in the thrilling new series A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. The six-episode series follows 17-year-old sleuth Pip Fitz-Amobi as she reinvestigates the murder-suicide of a popular high school senior and her boyfriend that shocked her hometown of Little Kilton five years previous.
Always fascinated by the case, Pip uses a school project to pick at the seams of the police work that all-too-quickly determined Andie Bell (India Lillie Davies) had been killed by her boyfriend, Sal Singh (Rahul Pattni), who then killed himself after being named a suspect. Something’s always told Pip that there was more to this sordid tale of love and death, and an independent school research project happens to be the perfect opportunity to explore her hunch.
Played by Emma Myers (best known for Netflix’s smash-hit Addams Family spinoff Wednesday, as the title character’s werewolf roommate), Pip finds herself entangled in the seedy side of her small town as she looks into what really happened to Andie and Sal. Poking around in the shadows and talking to people who would much rather be left alone makes this adolescent detective a target of dark forces who want to keep the truth under wraps. But like all brilliant gumshoes, her curiosity trumps her sense of self-preservation. Tracing the strands of evidence reveals a violent drug scene full of secrets that inexplicably tie back to Andie.
Like Holmes and Watson or Cagney and Lacey, sleuths work best in pairs. And so, Pip recruits Sal’s younger brother Ravi (Zain Iqbal) to help get to the bottom of the case and clear his brother’s name. Ravi was the last person to see Sal alive, and he and Pip share both the belief in his innocence and concern that the real killer is still free, lurking in their town.
During an interview with the BBC this past June, Myers admitted she didn’t feel like she had that much in common with the character of Pip, saying, “I have a harder time putting things together and I don’t think I’d have the guts to confront as many people as she does.”
However, she understood the importance of portraying Pip’s confidence. “She’s very strong in her opinion of what she thinks is right and wrong,” Myers added. “I think it’s good for young people to watch these sorts of things and see themselves in it.”
The series is adapted from the 2019 YA novel of the same name by author Holly Jackson, which became very popular in social media book nooks and made it onto several year-end best-of literature lists as a result of that reach. BookTok — the corner of social media platform TikTok dedicated to voracious reading — can make or break the success of new titles, especially genre novels. And that was certainly the case here. On that note, also speaking with the BBC, author Jackson shared what she thought made the novel a hit with so many readers: “We have lots of teenage angst and antics and those laugh-out-loud moments . . . and then, suddenly, you’re slapped around the face with the dark adult world of a crime thriller.”
The first in a trilogy of books, there is room for further seasons of the show, though executive producers Matthew Read and Frith Tiplady (both formerly producers on Peaky Blinders) confirmed in an interview with Variety last October that the first season covers the events of the first book and has a real ending. Which is to say: rest easy, fans. No maddening cliffhangers to be expected here. But if all goes to plan, Pip’s story will be far from one-and-done.
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder begins streaming Thursday, August 1, on Netflix