A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (TV series)

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder is a British television series based on the 2019 novel of the same name by Holly Jackson, adapted by Poppy Cogan, directed by Dolly Wells, and developed by Moonage Pictures for BBC Three. The first series of the show consists of six 45-minute episodes covering the events of the first book. If the series is renewed, later series plan to cover the other two books. However, executive producer Frith Tiplady also stressed that the first series has a real end. On 23 March 2024, Holly Jackson shared a small clip of the show with July 2024 as a UK release date. The show was internationally released on Netflix on 1 August 2024.

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder
Created by	Poppy Cogan
Based on	A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson
Written by	Poppy Cogan Ruby Thomas Zia Ahmed Ajoke Ibironke
Directed by	Dolly Wells Tom Vaughan
Starring	Emma Myers Zain Iqbal Asha Banks Raiko Gohara Jude Morgan-Collie Yali Topol Margalith Yasmin Al-Khudhairi Henry Ashton Carla Woodcock Mathew Baynton Gary Beadle Anna Maxwell Martin
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language	English
No. of series	1
No. of episodes	6
Production
Executive producers	Matthew Read Matthew Bouch Frith Tiplady Holly Jackson Poppy Cogan Dolly Wells
Producer	Florence Walker
Running time	40–48 minutes
Production companies	Moonage Pictures ZDFneo
Original release
Network	BBC Three
Release	1 July 2024 (2024-07-01)

Premise

Pip Fitz-Amobi (Emma Myers) is not satisfied that the killing of a local school girl has been investigated enough and takes matters into her own hands, producing her EPQ on the topic.

Cast

Main

• Emma Myers as Pippa (Pip) Fitz-Amobi
  • Kitty Anderson as Young Pip
• Zain Iqbal as Ravi Singh
• Asha Banks as Cara Ward
• Raiko Gohara as Zach Chen
• Jude Morgan-Collie as Connor Reynolds
• Yali Topol Margalith as Lauren Gibson
• Yasmin Al-Khudhairi as Naomi Ward
• Henry Ashton as Max Hastings
• Carla Woodcock as Becca Bell
• Mathew Baynton as Elliot Ward
• Gary Beadle as Victor Amobi
• Anna Maxwell Martin as Leanne Amobi

Recurring

• India Lillie Davies as Andie Bell
• Rahul Pattni as Sal Singh
• Jackson Bews as Daniel Da Silva
• Kamari Loyd as Josh Amobi
• Matt Chambers as Jason Bell
• Annabel Mullion as Rosie Hastings
• Adam Astill as Toby Hastings
• Orla Hill as Ruby Foxcroft
• Matthew Khan as Dylan
• Oliver Wickham as Jesse Walker
• Georgia Lock as Isla Jordan

Guest

• Georgia Arron as Emma Hutton
• Jessica Webber as Nat Da Silva
• Thomas Gray as Howie Bowers
• Ephraim O.P. Sampson as Jake Lawrence

Episodes

No.	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original release date
1	"Episode 1"	Dolly Wells	Poppy Cogan	1 July 2024 (2024-07-01)
Pippa 'Pip' Fitz-Amobi is entering her final year of secondary school and for her final year project, she has decided to investigate the disappearance of Andie Bell in 2019, five years earlier. A popular student, Andie was dating classmate Sal Singh when she disappeared, with police suspecting him of being responsible for her murder. Before he could be charged, though, Sal allegedly confessed to killing Andie and then took his own life. However, Pip believes Sal is innocent and is determined to find out the truth. After being rebuffed by Sal's brother Ravi, she begins her investigation by interviewing Sal's friend Naomi Ward, the older sister of Pip's best friend Cara, whose father Elliot is an English teacher at their school. Naomi reveals that Sal had an alibi for the night of Andie's disappearance. Following an interview with Sal's friend Max Hastings, who claims Naomi is lying to protect Sal, she approaches Ravi again. After she tells him she believes Sal is innocent, Ravi shows Pip Sal's phone, indicating that someone else appears to have sent the confession text from his phone.
2	"Episode 2"	Dolly Wells	Poppy Cogan	1 July 2024 (2024-07-01)
Now working with Ravi, Pip turns her attention to Andie's two best friends, Emma Hutton and Nat Da Silva. Interviewing them, she finds out Andie had a secret, older boyfriend. Taking a break from the investigation, Pip goes camping with her friends. During the trip, she finds an anonymous warning telling her to stop digging. Returning from the camping trip, Pip and Ravi deduce from Andie's social media photos that shortly before her disappearance, she and Nat had a falling out over Andie leaking nude photos of her. Pip and Ravi confront Nat, who denies hurting Andie and discloses that Andie was involved with Max. Pip goes back to interview Max, who claims that his relationship with Andie was not romantic; instead, Andie dealt illegal drugs, and Max was one of her customers.
3	"Episode 3"	Dolly Wells	Ruby Thomas	1 July 2024 (2024-07-01)
Pip decides she must track down the drug dealer Andie was dealing for. To do so, she must find the location of a 'calamity party' — an infamous secret teen party, full of drugs and sex. Attending the party with her friends, Cara and Lauren, she manages to find the drug dealer, who reveals that Andie kept a secret burner phone along with a drug stash in a stuffed rabbit. After the party, she receives a threatening text message that tells her to stop investigating. The next day, after deciding that she needs to find the rabbit and phone, Pip breaks into Andie's house with Ravi, where they are almost caught by Andie's sister, Becca Bell, and policeman Dan Da Silva.
4	"Episode 4"	Tom Vaughan	Zia Ahmed and Poppy Cogan	1 July 2024 (2024-07-01)
Going through the stuffed rabbit that they stole from Andie's house in the previous episode, Pip and Ravi find a list of Andie's customers written out in code. Later that day, Pip also discovers that the customer list was written on a piece of paper from the Ivy House Hotel. Going to investigate, Pip steals the guest list from 2019 and during their escape, they discover that Andie stayed at the hotel when Pip recognises the floor from a selfie Andie took there. Pip determines that Andie stayed with her older boyfriend under the pseudonyms of Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby. Pip attempts to call the number associated with the booking but find that it is disconnected. The next day, on her way to school, Dan Da Silva corners Pip, revealing that he knows it was her that broke into the Bell house and pressuring her to stop investigating — even going so far as to show her a video of Sal getting aggressive during a police interview. Unsure of the meaning of the video, Pip wonders if Sal did commit the murder. She remembers seeing Sal and Andie the day before Andie disappeared, with Sal asking Pip if she had seen Andie, when Andie wanted to be left alone. After a falling-out with Ravi, Pip returns to Cara's house, where Naomi gives Pip access to her laptop before leaving for the 2019 class reunion. On the laptop, Pip finds screenshots from Max Hastings‘s Instagram account, which show that Sal had been with Max and Naomi on the night of the disappearance until 12:06, later than they claimed he did. Pip leaves Cara to find Naomi.
5	"Episode 5"	Tom Vaughan	Poppy Cogan and Ajoke Ibironke	1 July 2024 (2024-07-01)
At the 2019 class reunion party, Naomi reveals to Pip that Max, herself and Jake Lawrence were involved in a drunk driving collision on New Year’s Day 2019 with Max, the driver, calling someone to have it covered up. Naomi further reveals that someone was blackmailing Jake, Max and herself into lying to the police that Sal actually left at 10:30. Later that night, Pip receives further threatening text messages. Attempting to goad the killer, she makes a video claiming that she has proof Sal is innocent. However, the next day, her dog Barney is taken and killed. Distraught by this turn of events, Pip realises that Max must have called Dan after the accident. Confronting Dan at the police station, he admits to having an underage affair with Andie Bell and that Max was blackmailing him. The next day at school, Pip gets a call from Andie Bell's older boyfriend's number. Picking up the call it turns out to be Naomi using her father Elliot's old phone. After getting picked up by Elliot for a movie night with Cara, Pip deliberately leaves her phone in the car so she can track it with her laptop. She then discovers that Elliot printed the message telling her to stop digging, and sees that Elliot has gone to the old Ward family home, that they moved out of years ago. After notifying Ravi where she is going, she goes to the house and confronts Elliot. He confesses to having an inappropriate relationship with Andie, which ended once she started dating Sal. Elliot further reveals that months later Andie approached him and tried to blackmail him for money. Refusing to pay her, they fought, with Andie falling and hitting her head on the counter. He then went to call an ambulance, but when he came back, she was gone. After finishing his story, Pip hears a tapping coming from the pipes. Assuming it is Andie, Pip races up to the attic to discover a woman bearing a striking resemblance to Andie. Elliot closes the door to the attic, trapping Pip.
6	"Episode 6"	Tom Vaughan	Poppy Cogan	1 July 2024 (2024-07-01)
Still in the attic, the young woman, who is called Isla, explains that she had been homeless when Elliot picked her up while he was out for a drive and offered to let her stay at the house. That evening, he confessed to her that he murdered Sal. To prevent the police from investigating him for Andie's disappearance, Elliot lured Sal into the woods, where he drugged and killed him before sending the false confession using Sal’s phone. He then refused to let Isla leave, keeping her trapped in the house for the next 5 years. As Isla finishes her story, Pip hears sirens in the distance and the police come to the house, arrest Elliot, and save Pip and Isla. Days later, the truth has come out about what Elliot did, though he still denies having killed Andie. Distraught about ruining Cara's life and the fact that Ravi is moving away, Pip begins to take down all the evidence in her room about the Andie Bell case when she notices that Elliot could not have been the one who abducted Barney. Confronting Elliot at the police station, he tells her that he learned about the car accident by reading Naomi's diary, and that Andie had been afraid of her father Jason. Going to the recycling plant that Jason owns, Pip discovers a blue van linked to Andie’s disappearance. One of the employees catches her and reveals that Jason told the police about the blue van, and that it was later determined to be unrelated to the case. She also reveals that Andie's sister Becca once attended a calamity party where she was drugged with Rohypnol and raped. Later, at home Pip, deduces that Max was the customer of Andie’s who bought Rohypnol and that he then assaulted Becca. After confronting Max, Pippa goes to Andie's house where Becca reveals that she had wanted to go to the police about the assault, but Andie refused to let her because she was the one who sold Max the drugs. Andie had also been planning on running away from home because she didn't want to deal with their father anymore. Enraged, Becca pushed Andie, who was already injured from the struggle with Elliot at the hotel, killing her. Becca takes Pip to where she hid Andie’s body in a septic tank. She then admits to Pip that she drugged Pip’s tea and plans to kill her, too. Pip runs off but is unable to escape because the drugs make her almost pass out. Just as Becca is about to kill Pip, Ravi and Cara find her by having tracked Pip’s phone. As Becca runs off, they reveal the police have also been called in. It is then revealed through a flashback that, on the day Andie went missing, Sal had been looking for her to comfort and support her in her plan to escape from her father. Days later, having fully recovered from her ordeal, Pip confronts Max and declares that she will get justice for all the people he hurt. She then goes to meet Ravi where they confess their feelings for each other.

Production

In September 2022, the project was announced as a BBC Three television adaptation of the Holly Jackson novel A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, produced by Moonage Pictures. Dolly Wells is set to direct the project from a script by Poppy Cogan, alongside Zia Ahmed, Ajoke Ibironke and Ruby Thomas. It is produced by Florence Walker, and executive producers include Matthew Read, Matthew Bouch and Frith Tiplady for Moonage Pictures, and Lucy Richer and Danielle Scott-Haughton for the BBC, along with Wells, Holly Jackson and Cogan.

Casting

In June 2023, production started with Emma Myers and Zain Iqbal cast into the lead roles of Pip and Ravi.

Filming

Filming took place around Bristol and Somerset. Locations include the Redcliffe Caves, the Avon Valley Railway car park, Redland, Redmaids' High School, Westbury on Trym, and Axbridge. Filming took place between July 2023 and September 2023.

Release and reception

The show was released for streaming on 1 July 2024 on BBC iPlayer in the UK and in Ireland, Stan in Australia, and ThreeNow in New Zealand. A terrestrial broadcast on BBC Three began on 10 July 2024, with two episodes being broadcast per week. The show will be released in Germany on 30 August 2024 on the ZDFmediathek service, while ZDFneo will broadcast two episodes per week beginning from 8 September 2024. On 22 April 2024, Netflix announced that the show would be released on its platform on 1 August 2024.

Critical response

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the series has an approval rating of 86% based on 12 reviews, with an average rating of 6.0 out of 10. Metacritic calculated a weighted average of 66 out of 100 based on 15 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

External links

• A Good Girl's Guide to Murder at IMDb 
• A Good Girl's Guide to Murder at Rotten Tomatoes