SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for the entirety of A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder.
The six-part series A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, now out on Netflix after first arriving via the BBC in the United Kingdom, takes a lot of pages out of Holly Jackson’s book as it’s adapted from the first book of the same name in Jackson’s trilogy. Emma Myers (Wednesday) brings Pop Fitz-Amobi, an amateur detective who decides to investigate the case of Andie Bell’s (India Lillie Davies) murder.
The justice system previously found that Andie’s boyfriend Salil Singh killed her, but Pip can’t shake the suspicion that he was innocent. Thus unfolds a complicated trail through chaotic parties, Andie’s unknown life and more.
As an executive producer on the show, author Holly Jackson made it a priority to make sure the spirit of the book was apparent in the television adaptation.
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“I would do a lot of notes on the scripts to try and get them into good shape and always get them to be closer to the books. I viewed my role as a representative of the readership because we wouldn’t be here without them,” she told Deadline. “And at the same time, I’m aware that we have to make changes because I’d be the first to admit that if you just took A Good Girls Guide To Murder exactly as it is and put it on screen, it’d be really boring. Pip spends a lot of the time just on her computer. That’s not fun to watch.”
Jackson also pointed out some big differences that certain readers might pick up on or be confused about.
“You’ll recognize lots of themes that come straight out of the book, like the camping scene, episode six. We got to do cool stuff like reimagining scenes from the book in a cooler location. In the book, we have these house parties that happen in houses, and we were able to shoot those inside some really cool caves, which I think just elevates it and makes them that much creepier and intense,” she said. “I think lots of viewers on Netflix may be confused about the fact that we’re in England in a plucky little town in Buckinghamshire, called Little Kilton which may be different from their reading experience and because for the American version of The Good Girls Guide to murder Pop lives in Fairview, Connecticut, and she doesn’t say things like ‘bloody hell.’”
Other details were added or changed for certain characters and events. Read on below for the changes made and how the show stacks up to the book:
Pip’s investment in the case
The show gave Pip another motive other than her EPQ — Extended Project Qualification — to solve the Andie Bell case. Throughout the show, a memory she has of Sal searching for Andie at school replays over and over in her mind. She feels guilt over telling Sal where a crying Andie went before holding her finger to her lips in a “hush” signal. She worries that if Sal did truly kill Andie, she may have helped him do so.
How Pip meets Max Hastings
Max Hastings, portrayed by Henry Ashton (My Lady Jane, Outlander), was in Salil, or Sal’s as was his nickname friend group before he died. In the show, she confronts him at his parents’ silver wedding anniversary party dressed in a shiny star costume. In the book, her first interview with him was short and sweet with not a ton of buildup before the recording transcript shows.
Nat da Silva was not a close friend of Andie’s
Nat da Silva (Jessica Webber) was a target of Andie’s before she died in the book, but in the show, she was also one of Andie’s closest friends. She replaced Chloe Burch in the books, while Emma Hutton is the other friend of Andie’s in the show. In the book, she is a person of interest on Pip’s list, but even more suspicious is her brother Daniel, who was a police officer and who was involved in the case.
Daniel da Silva’s involvement
Daniel da Silva makes an earlier appearance in the show than in the book at the Hastings’ anniversary party. He gets a bit more time in the show than in the book as well as he confronts Pip in the show versus her seeking him out in the book to ask him questions. He also shows a video of Sal’s confession to the police, which Pip gets in the book via a heavily redacted transcript.
The build-up to calamity parties
Once Pip discovers Andie dealt drugs, she follows the thread of calamity parties, or secret gatherings that the high school kids threw, because Andi sold drugs at them. Enlisting her best friends Cara Ward (Asha Banks) and Lauren (Yali Topol Margalith) to trace how calamity parties were planned and subtly advertised, they realized that black ribbons were used to signal an upcoming party, and Pip finds them tied to the trees in the woods.
“Episode Three was actually running quite short so we needed to find some way that they had an obstacle to finding this party, which is where the black ribbons kind of came in, to do with their mission to finding the calamity party,” Jackson said. “But often, TV shows, being a visual medium, sometimes you just need something that looks a bit creepy, even if it’s not very plot relevant. That’s a fun image that we keep returning to as a kind of representation of, ‘Oh, there’s the dark underbelly of this nice sweet English quaint town.’
They also have to solve a code, “Black Banana Bears” which Mr. Ward helps determine is a geolocation.
Marshmallows
A cute addition to the budding romance between Pip and Ravi Singh (Zain Iqbal), Sal’s brother, as they work to solve the case, is what they determine to be the quietest food on earth — marshmallows. This detail comes in handy later in another moment that was changed from the book.
The Ivy House Hotel
Victor Amobi (Gary Beadle), Pip’s stepdad stayed at the Ivy House Hotel, where Andie had multiple rendezvous with a secret older guy. The reveal of her mom Leanne (Anna Maxwell Martin) and step-dad having issues in the past doesn’t factor into the plot overall, at least in this season of the show.
Max’s social media handle
Naomi Ward (Yasmin Al-Khudhairi), Cara’s older sister subtly hinted to Pip that Max had a secret social media account under the name Nancy Tangotit*. In the book, Pip found the secret handle through her own sleuthing as he was tagged under the username.
She also came clean about Max’s drunk driving and DUI that resulted in the death of a stranger, which further incorporated Max into the surroundings of the case.
The kidnapped girl doesn’t think she’s Andie
Now we’re getting into spoiler territory with Andie’s death and those involved.
As in the book, it turns out that the Secret Older Guy Andie was seeing is Elliot Ward (Mathew Baynton). He pushed Andie off as she attacked him demanding money, and she hit her head, causing the bleeding shown in the beginning.
In Jackson’s book, Elliot kidnapped a random girl off the side of the road that he thought was Andie and held her hostage in the Ward’s old house. This happens in the show as well, but while in the book the girl comes to think that she really is Andie, the girl in the show knows she is not, and she is held captive because Mr. Ward confessed the truth to her when he found her.
How Pip figured out who killed Andie
Around the death of the Fitz-Amobi family dog Barney in the book, the mysterious texter who threatens Pip and kidnaps Barney, tells her to stop digging for the truth and to destroy all the evidence. At this point, Ravi doesn’t know that the death of Barney and the killer are connected. Pip tells him she has given up, but he realizes in the book that it’s the threat of Barney’s death that made her stop.
In the show, Pip posts a video on social media to try and draw the killer out to reveal themselves, but this is what prompts the kidnapping of Barney. She then posts another video to withdraw her claims from before, but Barney still turns up dead in the neighborhood.
Ravi then tries to pull the plug before they’ve finished the case once they’ve figured out Elliot’s involvement, and he wants to get out of his hometown and get a job. It’s a marshmallow treat that convinces him to turn around, and just in time too…
The confrontation with Becca
Pip’s confrontation with Becca shifted a bit when Andie’s younger sister offered to take Pip to see where she’d hidden Andie’s body. Becca drugged Pip’s tea in the book, but Pip started to feel the effects at the Bell house.
Ravi found her in the book with his phone tracker, but in the show, Cara helps save the day as she tracks Pip. Another wrinkle added to the ending was that Sal and Andie were going to run away together had they lived.
