Netflix's A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder is a solid YA whodunit

Welcome to Little Kilton. A place with a population small enough that everyone knows everyone. A town safe enough that people really leave their spare keys under flowerpots. A place so picturesque that everyone lives in harmony. Mostly. Because five years before we, the viewers of Netflix’s A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder (which premieres August 1), step into Little Kilton, two teenagers died: Andie Bell was killed, and her boyfriend Sal Singh committed suicide after confessing to her murder. Not so quaint a town now, is it?  

Based on the first in a trilogy of pretty dark YA novels by Holly Jackson, A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder isn’t really the story of Andie and Sal; it’s the story of Pip Fitz-Amobi (Emma Myers), a precocious and clever teenager who decides to investigate Andie’s murder for her EPQ (an Extended Project Qualification that some British students do in their final year at school). It’s an odd topic to choose, but no one seems to put up much of a fuss at the beginning, not even Pip’s mum (Anna Maxwell-Martin) or stepdad Victor (Gary Beadle). It’s a sign of just how good a girl Pip is that she has such free reign.

As Pip looks into the case, it turns out that there are actually things worth exploring: Andie wasn’t quite as innocent and lovely as she seemed, Sal’s final confessional text message doesn’t seem to grammatically match all the others he sent in his life, and some of Andie and Sal’s friends (especially the creepy Max) have capital-s Secrets. Somehow Pip persuades Sal’s younger brother Ravi (Zain Iqbal) to help her, and the two proceed to lightly flirt their way through the case, along the way engaging in a little criminal behavior (but for a good cause, you understand) and discovering a larger conspiracy surrounding Andie’s murder.

Part of the reason Pip can both pursue the Andie Bell case and bring Ravi along with her is because of her goodness, which is key to the series. It is perhaps a little too much at times, with the character so naive and idealistic and barreling into so much danger so fast that if she were in a horror film, she’d be the blond to die first. (Luckily, she’s a brunette.) 

Pip’s innocence—reflected in the staid shorts and sweater vests she’s almost constantly dressed in, like some British-girl version of a Hardy boy—means she gets away with a lot. She breaks into Andie Bell’s house, leaving her extremely recognizable car outside; she goes to a party and questions a drug dealer with no consequences; and she gets rescued from an assault by a friend of a friend. It’s a charmed life, and as a viewer, you can’t help but think that in addition to her goodness, Pip’s able to do what she does because of her whiteness. Race is in the background for much of the show, even though Little Kilton seems on the surface to be a place where people live in racial (and class) harmony.

But race is important, even if Pip doesn’t acknowledge it much. In one of the show’s early scenes, Pip’s stepfather Vic discusses a legal case he’s won and mentions that people “are innocent until proven guilty, unless…” As he trails off, Pip’s younger brother chimes in with, “You’re a Black man,” prompting an admonishment from his wife who doesn’t seem to want the topic brought up. Ravi mentions to Pip that an Indian boy dating a white girl like Andie wasn’t exactly celebrated, and that it was all too easy for people to believe he murdered her. And yet, despite these comments, Pip never actually engages in a proper discussion about what it means to be Black or brown in the world or how Sal might have been treated differently.

It’s one of the show’s more puzzling choices, given that Pip is so clever that she surely must have considered race at some point, but it’s also easy to argue within the show’s universe that she’s so consumed with her own worldview that she sees everything else through that light. It’s not that Pip is selfish, but even her investigation of the Andie Bell case starts as a way to assuage her own guilt: We learn through flashback that on the day of Andie’s death, Pip saw her taking shelter in a classroom. When Sal followed minutes later, Pip told him where Andie had gone, and she’s spent years assuming that whatever happened between the two of them might have led to Andie’s death. Centering herself in this way feels ridiculous, but it also fits Pip, whose best friend argues with her in the first episode that she is “totally happy to fuck everyone else’s life up” so she can carry on playing detective. 

There are a couple of missteps in the show, though. A large number of characters float around, and sometimes it’s a little difficult to keep track of all of Andie’s friends (who are crucial but aren’t often seen onscreen) as well as all of Pip’s, especially because everyone looks roughly the same age. The series also has a number of threads to tie up, and this perhaps works better in a book where it feels more coherent and less rushed. On the show, it feels a little like there’s a false ending or two, even though that’s not really the case.

But overall, A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder is solid viewing. It’s speedy enough—six 40-minute episodes—that no installment is devoid of action. Despite some slight British accent problems, Myers is mostly great as Pip, and compelling to watch, and the legendary Maxwell-Martin is fantastic as her mum. The show deftly addresses a number of big issues around power and consent, setting itself up well for a second season (which it really does deserve). Pip may be a steadfastly good girl, but this show is about how people are really made of shades of grey. And over the course of A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder, that’s something Pip learns, too. 

A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder premieres August 1 on Netflix