Review of “A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder”: A thrilling, intricate crime thriller, as if “The Famous Five” meets “Pretty Little Liars”

July 1, 2024

Pip, 17, is the kind of teenager who has never given her parents cause for concern. She doesn’t drink, seems physically incapable of telling even the slightest lie, and spends her free time evaluating Cambridge colleges based on their acceptance rates and famous graduates. In fact, it is only the prospect of a few extra Ucas points that draws her into the dirty business of investigating a murder in A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, the BBC’s likeable, captivating drama based on Holly Jackson’s bestselling young adult novel.

This is probably the only crime thriller that uses the Extended Project Qualification – essentially an additional program in which high school graduates write a mini-dissertation on a chosen topic – as a plot element. Pip, played by Wednesday Star Emma Myers, decides to abandon her original idea of writing about gothic novels and instead delve into the disappearance and presumed death of Andie Bell (Indie Lillie Davies). Andie was a popular senior student at Pip’s school who disappeared five years ago. Her boyfriend Sal (Rahul Pattni) seemingly confessed to her murder shortly after, but then committed suicide.

These two deaths still haunt the sleepy village of Little Kilton – with its thatched cottages and rows of pastel-coloured shopfronts. Pip’s thesis is that “the good guys don’t kill people”, and Sal, she believes, was a very good person. She soon turns her bedroom wall into an evidence board covered in Instagram printouts connected by red string, and recruits Sal’s younger brother Ravi (Zain Iqbal) as her colleague. Her mother and father are less than pleased. Anna Maxwell Martin and Gary Beadle are a delight here as the parents, providing comic relief and, later, emotional depth.

Pip’s investigative style – and really her character as a whole – is a little jarring at the beginning of the series. She has a refreshingly direct approach when it comes to questioning her potential suspects about the case, bordering on self-righteousness. At times she seems to see the case as a puzzle to be solved, an intellectual exercise rather than a terrible tragedy. But as the episodes progress, her confidence grows (and Myers’ performance becomes less mannered and more empathetic) and she makes so many mistakes herself that she stops seeing the case in such black-and-white terms.

Soon Pip has turned her bedroom wall into an investigation board as she tries to find the murderer (BBC/Moonage Pictures/Sally Mais)

As Pip delves deeper into the case, the series takes us on a turbulent journey through the cliches of the teen mystery drama. There’s the spooky camping trip to a lonely forest, an attempt to talk to ghosts using a very rudimentary version of a Ouija board, and even a hint of Skin-style bacchanalia as she and her friends attend a secret party in a cave (the latter feels a bit like a CBBC version of euphoriawhere Pip questions a supposedly dangerous drug dealer in an unlikely way about his business).

But although some of these elements seem familiar, the story is quickly told and filled with enough twists to A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder to see more. Think Five friends meets pretty Little Liarsnarrated by Agatha Christie: A combination that shouldn’t work on paper, but will captivate you nonetheless.