A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder is a series created by Poppy Cogan, based on the famous novel by Holly Jackson. We meet Pip, an ambitious and passionate high school girl who’s about to go to Cambridge next year. But she’s got her mind hooked on solving a big mystery. Some five years ago, a tragic incident shook the entire local community when a high school girl named Andie went missing. Her boyfriend at the time, Sal, confessed to the murder and then tragically committed suicide. But Pip just can’t believe Sal did it. She remembers him as a kind, honest, and good person. Most of all, Sal loved Andie. Why would he kill her? Pip is convinced there’s more to the story and that someone else is responsible. She is determined to find the real culprit and bring justice to both Andie and Sal. Pip teams up with Sal’s brother, Ravi. Together, they dive into the case to uncover secrets and follow clues. Will Pip be able to solve the mystery? And if she does, who will the real murderer turn out to be? Let’s find out together!
Spoilers Ahead
Why did Ravi want to help Pip?
Losing Sal was devastating for the Singh family. They wanted to bring him justice, but they felt hopeless because the police had a confession from Sal’s phone saying he killed Andie Bell. They never found Andie’s body, but everyone just assumed Sal was the murderer. Pip, who knew Sal personally and believed he was a good guy, couldn’t accept that he was guilty. Pip talked with Ravi, Sal’s brother, and told him she wanted to solve the crime to clear Sal’s name. At first, Ravi was skeptical. He thought Pip might be doing it just as a project to demonstrate her motivation and work ethic for her Cambridge University application. She did feel guilty, though, because when the whole incident turned the lives of these high school kids upside down five years ago, she didn’t do anything to help. That guilt stayed with her. Ravi initially thought Pip had selfish reasons, but when he saw her determination—when she went around asking questions to people who were close to Sal, like his best friends Max and Naomi—he realized she was serious. He decided to help her by becoming her Watson. Ravi showed Pip something significant that proved Sal’s innocence. When Sal supposedly confessed to the crime on April 19, 2019, the night of the murder, the message on his phone was written in full sentences. But in his previous chats, Sal always used short, informal text, like “I’m going to meet you.” This clear difference made them realize that someone else wrote the confession after killing Sal. This gave them enough reason to believe Sal was innocent and motivated them even more to solve the murder.
Why did Pip think Sal might not be innocent?
When Pip and Ravi started their investigation, they uncovered some interesting details. Andie’s best friend, Nat, mentioned a “secret older guy” Andie was having an affair with. Sal was obviously angry when he found out. Then there was Max, one of Sal’s best friends, who might have had a connection with Andie, but he was a troublemaker, so Nat didn’t want Andie to hang out with him. But she did anyway. On the other hand, Nat’s brother, Dan, was a policeman and had ways to cover up crimes. Pip and Ravi thought he might be involved. Maybe he was the “secret older guy” since he was older than Andie and had been threatening her to stop digging into things. They were very suspicious of him. Max confessed to Pip that he’d had a crush on Andie but never slept with her. He did admit that she was his drug dealer, and Sal didn’t like that Andie was selling drugs. Andie used to get drugs from a guy named Howie and sell them to make extra cash. Pip and Ravi even found proof of this. When they snooped around Andie’s house, they found drugs hidden inside her teddy bear. Pip started to think that maybe Sal and Andie had argued over the drugs, and maybe Sal had lost his temper. Her suspicions grew when Dan showed her a video of Sal being questioned by the police. In the video, Sal lost his temper and threw a chair in a rage, and it was really bad. This scared Pip and made her doubt everything. For a moment, she thought maybe Sal wasn’t as innocent as she believed. Maybe he did commit the crime, and she was chasing nothing.
Why did Naomi lie?
One night, Pip had a sleepover at her best friend Cara’s house. Cara’s sister, Naomi, had been Sal’s best friend, and their father, Elliot Ward, used to be Pip’s English teacher. That night, Naomi was relieved to hear that Pip was still investigating the crime involving Sal’s and Andie’s murder. Maybe she felt guilty or burdened by the lies that she had been hiding for so long and wanted Pip to find the truth. Naomi told Pip to look for clues in her Instagram photos from the night of the crime. In one picture, Pip saw Naomi, Max, and another guy. Someone was taking the picture, and a clock in the background showed it was 12:30 at night. The truth started to come together. Sal had been with them until 12:30 that night. He was the one taking the pictures. Sal was indeed innocent and had told the police he was with his best friends when Andie went missing. But the police didn’t believe him. Why? Because Max and Naomi told the police that Sal left their house around 10:15. They said he wasn’t with them. Why did they lie? They wanted to cover up their own crime. On New Year’s Eve, Naomi and Max were coming back from a party, a bit drunk. Their car hit another car, and the driver got pushed off the road. They were young and scared, so Max called Dan, who was a policeman, to cover up the hit-and-run. Actually, Dan had been sleeping with Andie when she was only 15 years old, which was a serious crime. Max knew about this and threatened to tell the police if Dan didn’t help them cover up the hit-and-run. Naomi and the others, influenced by Max, let the man die by the side of the road and turned a blind eye to it. But they weren’t the only ones who knew what happened. Someone else knew and kept threatening them. This anonymous person told them that if they didn’t frame Sal for Andie’s murder, he would reveal their hit-and-run incident. So, feeling vulnerable, Naomi and the others had to lie to save themselves.
Who murdered Sal?
Elliot Ward was responsible for Sal’s death. Elliot was never on Pip’s list of suspects until she realized that the secret older guy Andie was having an affair with was him. She put a tracker in his car to follow his moves, only to find out that he was heading to his old house. Andie’s body had never been recovered, so Pip thought maybe he had trapped her there. But when she arrived, she found another blonde girl trapped in the house who told the whole story. Elliot had had an affair with Andie after his wife died, and he thought he loved her. But since she was seventeen, society wouldn’t see it as love. So he hid the affair. But Andie wanted to use it against him. She wanted money from him and threatened to tell everyone he had taken advantage of her if he didn’t give it to her. They argued, and Andie hit her head and started bleeding. Elliot got scared and called an ambulance, but when he came back to the room, Andie was gone. Panicked, he went looking for her but found a stray blonde girl instead. He took her home to fill the void Andie had left in his life. At first, the girl thought Elliot was a dignified, well-educated, good family man. But then he confessed to her that he had killed Sal. He had forced Sal to swallow a bunch of pills and let him die, and then sent the confession message from Sal’s phone. Elliot knew Sal was aware of their secret affair, and if Andie was never found and considered missing, Sal would reveal the affair, which would make Elliot look guilty. Elliot had also found Naomi’s secret from her diary about the hit-and-run and used it to blackmail them into framing Sal. This way, Elliot would remain free and innocent in everyone’s eyes. Pip and the police were shocked by how well-thought-out Elliot’s plan was. But Elliot believed he was acting out of love and passion. He thought he was doing it with good intentions because he was a widower and sought love from Andie. He didn’t want Cara and Naomi to be left alone without their parents if he turned himself in for the crime. So he never confessed and hid it until now. He was a good teacher and a good father, and still, he did this horrible thing—honestly, it makes you question everything.
Was Andie found?
Until now, no one knew if Andie was alive or dead. Since Sal’s confession was proven to be fabricated, they thought maybe Andie was still alive. But the truth was far from that, and the person responsible for the crime was none other than Andie’s own sister, Becca. Actually, in 2019, at a Calamity Party, Becca was raped by Max after he drugged her. Becca had told Andie about this, but she was shocked when Andie said that she couldn’t turn Max in because Andie was the one who sold drugs to him. If Max got into police custody, she would too. Andie and Becca argued, and Becca, in a fit of anger, pushed Andie away. Minutes later, Andie was coughing up blood, and her head was bleeding. Actually, that was the same night. Andie had come home with a bleeding head after arguing with Elliot, and the injury ultimately led to her death. Becca didn’t know what to do. She was angry and in pain. She thought she couldn’t let this news get out. To cover it up, she dragged Andie’s body to the hidden alleyway where the Calamity Rave party took place and dumped it there in a well. No one knew about it until Becca confessed to Pip and showed her the location.
But at the end of the series, we see that Becca’s confession was never about her confessing the crime. She was scared that now Pip would turn Becca to the police. So, Becca wanted to push Pip into the well to cover up the crime. Thank goodness Ravi and Cara tracked Pip’s location and called the police for backup, and Becca was arrested. She will probably pay for the crimes she had committed against her own sister.
So you see, the highlight of the day was that a high schooler had solved one of the most mysterious murder in town. Of course, Pip couldn’t have done it without Ravi’s help. Throughout the investigation, Ravi and Pip got closer. Maybe they would start a romantic relationship. Over the course of the investigation, Pip grew a lot. The girl who was so excited to go to Cambridge started thinking things over and questioning her decision. Her mother always wanted her to go to Cambridge because her dad went there, but now Pip wanted to be her own person. She wanted to do something she chose, go to a university of her own choice. She didn’t want to just please other people. After all, Pip is an intelligent young woman who wants to make her own decisions.
If there is ever a season 2 of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, maybe we will get to see where she finally ends up. There’s a chance she might decide not to go to Cambridge just to please her mother. Ravi and his family could finally have peace now, knowing that Sal was not a murderer. But don’t you think Max should be held responsible for it all? He was the one who drugged and raped Becca, and he was the main reason for the argument between the two sisters that led to this tragedy. To hide his crime of drunk driving in the hit-and-run incident, he let innocent Sal be framed too. Even after causing all this harm and ruining so many lives, Max was still roaming free. Honestly, that was pathetic. I really hope that if there’s a season 2, we’ll see Pip find enough evidence against Max to finally serve justice and make him pay for ruining other people’s lives. This time, maybe we can expect Naomi, Dan, and others who know about Max’s crimes might come forward and help Pip bring him to justice. And of course, Ravi for sure would be there with Pip every step of the way to support her. Max has to be held accountable.
