Max Hastings In Netflix’s ‘A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder’ Explained

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder is the brand-new BBC 3 show that falls in the whodunit genre. It is a six-part series that is about a young girl, Pippa Fitz-Amobi, who, for the sake of her project meant for university admission, delves into a five-year-old case that seemingly was closed by the police. A young woman, Andie Bell, had disappeared, and a while later her boyfriend, Sal Singh, confessed to the murder just before committing suicide. Pippa, however, was not sure if Sal Singh was the murderer, and Andie’s body still hadn’t been found by the local police. Andie’s father and her best friend’s brother Dan D’Silva were cops, and they had closed the case a long time ago, and the town saw no reason to reopen it now. The wounds of this tragic murder-suicide were still raw, and people were trying to leave it in the past.

Spoilers Ahead

Pippa was fascinated by the case, for the lack of a better word, because she always felt Sal Singh was a good guy, and she needed to uncover the truth. Her best friend Cara was not in favor of Pippa digging up the past, as Sal’s death had deeply affected her older sister Naomi. Nothing could stop Pippa from digging into the case because she was now playing detective. She also managed to rope in Salil’s brother Ravi Singh into the case and began a parallel investigation into the deaths to find out the circumstances that led to Sal’s suicide after Andie’s death. To find out more about Sal’s state of mind before he took the drastic decision, Pippa had to question his best friends; one of them was Naomi, who claimed he had left the party at Max Hastings earlier at 10:30 at night but Sal’s statement claimed had not reached home until 12:50 AM. Through Naomi, she managed to get Max Hastings to talk about Sal as well. Naomi, Sal, Max, and Jake had been best friends for a long time, and she believed they would know more about him and his relationship with Andie. Sal and Andie were a connected couple in the school. Both incidents happened in the year 2019, when the four of them, along with Andie, were in their final year of school. 

Max Hastings was the richest of the lot, and Pippa believed he would have a lot to say about the friendship he’d shared with Sal over the years. Max came from a dysfunctional family, which was evident from the way he acted as a person; he did not worry about his actions and their consequences. His way of having fun was to not take anyone seriously, especially Pippa. He went out of his way to get her drunk when she questioned him about Sal on his parent’s wedding anniversary. She could not get much from him, and he made sure to keep it minimal while only sharing the information about Sal’s whereabouts on the night Andie was killed. His aloof and nonchalant nature did not make him a stand out suspect initially until Andie’s best friend Nat Da Silva brought up his name again. Pippa was curious, as Max did come across as shady and could have committed some crime, but nothing had surfaced yet. She found a picture of Andie in her undergarments in Max’s wardrobe when she went to meet him to ask more questions and Max revealed Andie was a drug dealer, and she’d supplied drugs to him as well. Since Max divulged crucial details of the investigation, she never bothered to involve Max further in her investigation until a guilt-ridden Naomi shared details of the night of Andie’s murder, which proved Sal was with them till a little past midnight. This was when Max’s involvement in Sal’s arrest was revealed. 

Max, Naomi, and Jake had gotten into a drunk driving accident, which had caused a death. Max was the quickest of them all and arranged for their names to never appear in the case. Max was from an affluent family, and it was easy for him to make the case disappear, which benefited Naomi and Jake until the accident came back to bite them. He projected the behavior of a typical brat who was not concerned about human life. As his parents were well off, their only way to showcase their love was to get him out of trouble. Their troubled marriage was the reason why as a couple they never found time to correct his mistakes. He was sure his parents’ power and influence would ensure his safety until things went wrong for them with Andie’s disappearance and Sal becoming a suspect. A distraught Naomi revealed Max’s plan to throw Sal under the bus by telling the police he left his home by 10:30 pm. This was done as Max received threats regarding the hit-and-run case. Max chose to save himself, and along with him, his accomplices chose this path as well. 

The rich boy did not think twice before making Sal look like a strong suspect, which Naomi believed forced their best friend to commit suicide. Max could have been a bully as well, who may have forced Naomi and Jake to remain tight-lipped about the accident and the blackmail they kept receiving. It was later revealed that Max used the help of Nat’s brother Dan, who was a cop, to make sure their name never came up in the hit-and-run case. Pippa was astounded by how dark Max could be just to get himself out of trouble. Pippa soon got to the bottom of the case by finding out who killed Andie and how Sal’s suicide was connected to it. The revelation led her to Becca, Andie’s younger sister. 

Pippa confronted Becca, who revealed she was raped by Max after being drugged, and the boy refused to acknowledge the act of crime as he believed the sex was consensual. This piece of information rattled Pippa as she learned it was Becca who killed Andie when her elder sister refused to file a rape case against Max as she was the one who had supplied the date rape drug to him. Max was not only the reason behind the sisters’ conflict, but he also inadvertently led to the death of one of them. The young man was in denial about it and believed Becca and Pippa were crazy to be accusing him of rape. Max comes from a school of thought that led him to believe his money and power could take him places, which included no jail time. Cases of sexual assault had always been a slippery slope, and since this crime was committed five years ago, Max could get away with it, and Becca would be charged with murder as a result of the actions she took out of the anger she harbored against Max.

Max was indirectly the reason behind the two deaths. His need to stay out of trouble dragged Naomi into the mess, which led to Sal’s death. He sexually assaulted Becca, and his non-acknowledgement of it fueled her anger to kill Andie.