A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder Is Streaming Now

For fans of Holly Jackson’s YA mystery trilogy, the wait is over: A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder has been adapted by the BBC for the small screen, and all episodes are officially streaming now on BBC iPlayer. With Emma Myers (who you might recognise from Wednesday) leading the series with newcomer Zain Iqbal, here’s everything you need to know.

Streaming Now: A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder

© Moonage Pictures/Sally Mais/BBC

What Is A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder About?

Five years ago, the murder of schoolgirl Andie Bell rocked the small Buckinghamshire village of Little Kilton. The only reprieve was the early discovery that she was killed by her boyfriend Sal Singh, who then killed himself. Case closed. A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder centres on Pip, a hard-working, straight-A student who isn’t quite so sure Sal committed Andie’s murder – and she is determined to prove him innocent. She embarks on a quest to find out the truth, bringing Sal’s younger brother Ravi into the fold and disguising her investigation as a school project. Only one question remains: if Sal Singh isn’t a murderer and the real killer is still out there, how far will they go to keep Pip from the truth?

Is It Based On The Book?

Yes, the upcoming BBC series is based on Holly Jackson’s smash hit YA novel, A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder. Published in 2019, the novel was wildly successful in both the UK and across the Atlantic, scooping up a number of awards and nominations, including being named one of the best books of 2020 by Barnes & Noble, and winning the British Book Award for Children’s Fiction Book of the Year 2020.

In 2020, Jackson released a sequel titled Good Girl, Bad Blood, and a third novel in 2021 titled As Good As Dead. Jackson has also published a prequel to the series called Kill Joy, which shows Pip at a murder mystery party before the events of A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder.

Pip Fitz-Amobi (EMMA MYERS) and Ravi Singh (ZAIN IQBAL). (© Moonage Pictures/Screengrab/BBC)

Will There Be A Series Two?

We know A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder hasn’t been released yet, but we’re still keen to know if there will be adaptations of Jackson’s follow-up novels Good Girl, Bad Blood and As Good As Dead. One of the series’ executive producers Frith Tiplady recently told Variety: ‘We, the BBC and ZDF [the series’ German co-producers] hope that it will be a returning series. But we also want to stress the season has a real end — I think audiences are getting a bit frustrated with not having a resolution.’

‘Season One covers the first novel and future seasons would look at the subsequent novels,’ fellow executive producer Matthew Read added. ‘You find out whodunnit but Pip’s journey continues in the subsequent novels.’

The Cast

There’s a pretty long cast list for A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder. Here are all the actors we know about so far:

• Emma Myers as Pippa (Pip) Fitz-Amobi, a single-minded school student determined to prove Sal didn’t kill Andie
• Kitty Anderson as Young Pip
• Zain Iqbal as Ravi Singh, Sal’s younger brother who joins Pip to prove his brother’s innocence
• Anna Maxwell Martin as Leanne Amobi, Pip’s mother
• Gary Beadle as Victor Amobi, Pip’s stepfather
• India Lillie Davies as Andie Bell, a schoolgirl who was murdered five years ago
• Rahul Pattni as Sal Singh, Ravi’s elder brother who was accused of killing Andie before killing himself
• Asha Banks as Cara Ward, Pip’s best friend
• Yali Topol Margalith as Lauren Gibson, another of Pip’s good friends
• Jude Morgan-Collie as Connor Reynolds, another of Pip’s good friends
• Raiko Gohara as Zach Chen, another of Pip’s good friends
• Mathew Baynton as Elliot Ward, Cara and Naomi’s father, and one of Pip’s teachers
• Jessica Webber as Nat Da Silva, a friend of Andie
• Henry Ashton as Max Hastings, one of Andie’s old friends
• Carla Woodcock as Becca Bell, Andie’s sister
• Yasmin Al-Khudhairi as Naomi Ward, Cara’s younger sister and one of Andie’s old friends
• Matt Chambers as Jason Bell, Andie’s father
• Georgia Arron as Emma Hutton
• Orla Hill as Ruby Foxcroft
• Mitu Panicucci as Stella Chapman
• Annabel Mullion as Rosie Hastings
• Adam Astill as Toby Hastings
• Matthew Khan as Dylan
• Ephraim O.P. Sampson as Jake Lawrence

(L-R) Cara Ward (ASHA BANKS), Pip Fitz-Amobi (EMMA MYERS), Lauren (YALI TOPOL MARGALITH), Zach Chen (RAIKO GAHARA), Connor Reynolds (JUDE MORGAN-COLLIE). (© Moonage Pictures/Joss Barratt/BBC)

‘I am so unbelievably excited that Emma is our Pip,’ author Holly Jackson said. ‘She is phenomenal and this role was truly always meant to be hers. And we found our perfect Ravi in Zain. I can’t wait for us all to be able to watch their scenes. I smile every time I see them together, because I know that we’ve pulled off the impossible, and Emma and Zain are the only two people I would trust to bring these characters to life. Everyone’s going to be just as thrilled as I am.’

American actor Myers, who plays Pip, is a certified rising star, having appeared in Netflix’s Wednesday as late-blooming werewolf and Wednesday’s roommate Enid, as well as Family Switch opposite Jennifer Garner, Ed Helms and Brady Noon. But these credentials didn’t solidify Myers’ spot in A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder. In fact, the hunt for the perfect Pip was a lengthy one. Executive producer Read told Variety: ‘It was never our plan to hire an actress from across the pond. The hunt for Pip was a huge endeavour. It was like looking for Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind. We met lots and lots of actors and we were incredibly surprised an actress from America turned out to be perfect for Pip. But that was not our intention at all, she just did an incredible reading for us.’

Anna Maxwell Martin plays Pip’s mother Leanne in A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. (© Moonage Pictures/Sally Mais/BBC)

Where Was It Filmed?

A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder was filmed in southwest England. In the books, A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder actually changes setting depending on the publication country: in the UK, it is set in the fictional town of Little Kilton, Buckinghamshire; in the US, it is set in Fairview, Connecticut.

Pip Fitz-Amobi (EMMA MYERS). (© Moonage Pictures/Joss Barratt/BBC)

Watch It

All six episodes of A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder are streaming now on BBC iPlayer.

From 1 August, A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder will air globally on Netflix.