If you’ve ever joked about how girls really do find out everything better and faster than the police, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder might be why. Based on the wildly popular YA novel by Holly Jackson, the BBC adaptation (releasing globally on Netflix) follows Pip (Emma Myers), a teenage girl who decides to investigate a murder-suicide that happened in her small British town.
Five years prior, teenager Andie Bell (India Lillie Davies) went missing; a few days later her boyfriend Sal Singh (Rahul Pattni) texted a confession of her murder, before he killed himself. The whole town said he did it and the case was closed. But Pip still isn’t convinced Sal was a killer and launches an investigation of her own. Under the guise of a school project, she reaches out to Sal and Andie’s friends and families, looking for clues. She also befriends Sal’s younger brother Ravi (Zain Iqbal) who has some theories of his own. Together they start asking questions that begin to unravel a dangerous web of lies, blackmail, and blood.
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder is a thrilling mystery that stays true to its YA roots. The investigation, while riddled with red herrings and wild twists that wouldn’t fly in real life, remains compelling. And Pip is a determined investigator; she has all the punisher energy and privilege of a white teenage girl, but she’s softer than her character in the book and more likable. Emma Myers does an excellent job carrying the series on her shoulders, as does Zain Iqbal as Ravi—the two have good chemistry and bounce off each other well. The entire cast is commendable, making this fictional town feel like a real community of people with their own secrets and motivations that fuel the story.
The series balances the darkness of a murder investigation with the everyday slices of teenage life, as Pip tries to juggle hanging with her friends and prepping for university with the case’s growing number of questions and connections plastered all over her bedroom wall. As her investigation becomes more complex, the series deals with some heavy topics in a sensitive but realistic way for the time and setting, through the lens of a teenager who is still discovering the many gray areas to life.
The story will appeal to YA lovers for its headlong dive into the mystery, even if you might find yourself yelling at Pip and her friends not to do stupid things in their quest for the truth (but isn’t that what makes it all the more thrilling?). In this way, the series reflects its source material well, pulling together the book’s often disjointed (but notably creative) collection of investigative notes, interview transcripts, and third person chapters for a more TV-palatable narrative flow.
With that said, while I won’t get into specifics so you can watch the show unfold for yourself, the story doesn’t quite achieve the satisfying payoff from the original novel. It is still satisfying for those who haven’t read the book but readers may want a little bit more, especially when the series is so lovingly devoted to honoring the original text throughout. But overall it will definitely make you hope for more seasons. A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder is an adaptation done right; it’s an engaging binge-watch for YA readers and murder mystery fans alike.
Stream A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder on Netflix on August 1.
