I can see why A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder is a hit with the YA crowd. Appealing diverse characters, some LGBTQ characters, interesting mysteries, a bit of romance, and high school shenanigans.
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder has all the right ingredients, especially the lead character Pippa played by an excellent Emma Myers. However, I didn’t think the writing of the mystery part of the story was outstanding. There were too many crimes, too many perpetrators, and too many false clues. It was muddied and manipulative mystery-wise.
Five years ago Andie Bell (India Lillie Davies) disappeared. Although her body had never been found, she was presumed murdered. Her boyfriend Sal (Rahul Pattni) was the suspect. He committed suicide and confessed in a text message. Case solved, right?
Pippa saw them on their last day together. She can’t forget it and thinks if she had done things differently they might both be alive. She knew and liked Sal and didn’t think he was capable of murder.
Pippa decides to investigate the case for her senior project and college submission essay. A lot of people notice what she’s doing. Some people help her and some people try to stop her. She gets whispered secrets from some and threats from others.
Pippa teams up with Sal’s brother Ravi (Zain Iqbal). They follow the clues back and forth through the town, the school, the families, and the nearby forest. They are a good team, but a lot of what they learn has nothing to do with the murder and everything to do with other crimes.
Pippa turns her bedroom wall into a murder board. Her parents (Gary Beadle and Anna Maxwell Martin) are fairly supportive, although they want her to be careful. Her English teacher Elliot Ward (Mathew Baynton) thinks the whole idea is inappropriate for her school project. Mr. Ward’s two daughters Cara (Asha Banks) and Naomi (Yasmin Al-Khudhairi) are good friends with Pippa.
A theme of the series is that everyone has that evil seed inside and under the right circumstances it can grow. That’s probably the reason for the various crimes in addition to the murder of Andie Bell that crop up in the story. It paints things as morally grey. Pippa is the naive and innocent good girl. She nixes the whole idea and says, “you have a choice!”
The series seems ripe for a second season, in which case the character Max (Henry Ashton) might come under Pippa’s investigation. That’s not a spoiler, he isn’t the murderer, but Pippa blames him for certain things. There is more than one murderer involved and Pippa unmasks them all.
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder was created for television by Poppy Cogan based on a popular novel by Holly Jackson. Half of the six episodes were directed by Dolly Wells. The series was filmed in England under the BBC umbrella. It’s streaming in the US on Netflix.
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@Virginia I listened to the audio book, and I was disappointed as well. I might give the adaptation a chance because of Emma Myers, but it's not a high priority.
I wasn’t so much disappointed as wishing the mystery part of the plot wasn’t so complicated. That is usually a good thing in a mystery so I’m not sure why it bothered me here.
I watched this series without seeing this review (unusual!). YA content is not my favorite, but the series represented a couple of my wife’s favorite genres, so I could watch it and make her happy. And she was. But maybe not as much as me! A courageous main character who you wanted to root for. The reveals kept coming, each more shocking than the last. We are not bingers but were compelled to watch in long batches because we were hooked. In between we talked about details of the complex happenings to try to figure out what was going on. This series will be a highlight of our summer.
I needed some one to hash through the things with.