A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder follows a schoolgirl’s quest to solve a five-year-old murder case and prove the innocence of the boy who was labeled as the murderer. The series is now streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
Pip, a high school senior who never causes trouble, decides to solve a five-year-old murder case of a girl named Andie Bell for her EPQ.
Five years ago, Andie went missing. A few days later, her boyfriend, Sal Singh, confessed to her murder via a text message and took his own life. Andie’s body was never found.
Since then, Sal’s family has faced discrimination and hatred from the people in their town, causing his younger brother, Ravi, to drop out of school.
Pip still finds it hard to believe that Sal killed Andie. Apart from being the head boy at school, Sal was a kind person who never received the trial he deserved.
Pip wants to solve the case not just for her school project but also for her own sake. The day Andie went missing, Pip had seen her at school.
Andie had asked Pip not to tell anyone where she went, but when Sal asked, Pip pointed him in Andie’s direction.
Pip wants to believe that she did not inadvertently cause Andie’s death, which is why she is determined to prove Sal’s innocence.
Pip starts her investigation by questioning Sal’s best friends, Naomi—who is also Pip’s best friend Cara’s older sister—and Max Hastings.
Sal was with them on the night Andie disappeared. Max tells Pip that Sal left early but asked them to lie to the police about the time he left to provide an alibi.
Pip also approaches Ravi. Her belief in Sal’s innocence convinces Ravi to help her solve the case. He shows her Sal’s phone, and they conclude that Sal’s confession was not written by him.
Pip then questions Andie’s best friends and discovers that Andie was involved with an older man, referred to as the Secret Older Guy.
As Pip questions more people, she starts receiving threats. A policeman named Dan, who had worked on Andie’s case, also warns Pip to stop her investigation.
However, Pip persists. Max later tells her that Andie was dealing drugs and used to sell to him. Pip then goes to a rave party to meet Andie’s supplier.
With the information the supplier provides, Pip finds Andie’s drug stash and a list of her clients after breaking into her house.
Pip discovers the list was made on hotel paper and visits that hotel with Ravi. They steal a guest book, which shows Andie did not stay there alone.
Andy and her companion used the names of literary characters to book a room. Pip also gets the number of Andie’s companion from the guest book.
Besides the threatening notes and messages, Pip now faces pressure from her mother and her teacher, Elliot, who is Cara’s father, to drop the case.
Pip agrees to choose another topic for her EPQ but continues working on the case with Ravi. It is then that Dan approaches her again.
Dan is grateful to Andie’s father, Jason, for his past help, which is why he does not want Pip to cause Jason’s family more pain.
He is convinced that Sal killed Andie. He shows Pip a video of Sal being questioned by the police. Sal’s aggression in the video makes Pip doubt Sal’s innocence.
When she shares her doubts with Ravi, they have a falling out, as Ravi believes in his brother’s innocence and is disappointed in Pip for trying to solve the case only to resolve her guilt.
Pip also shares her doubts with Naomi, who does not want Pip to give up on the case. Naomi provides Pip with evidence that proves Sal’s innocence.
Sal was indeed with his friends until late that night. His friends lied to the police about Sal not being with them at the time of Andie’s disappearance because they had been blackmailed.
His friends were involved in a hit-and-run, and someone threatened to report the accident if they provided an alibi for Sal.
Naomi held onto a photo that proves Sal’s innocence, hoping that someday she would have the courage to reveal the truth. Pip does not take the photo to the police because she wants to protect Naomi from trouble.
As Pip gets closer to the truth, the threats increase tenfold. To draw the culprit out, Pip posts a video on social media, promising to reveal her findings.
She reconciles with Ravi, who stays by her side for her safety. However, they fail to save Pip’s dog, Barney, who is murdered on the day of her brother’s birthday.
Ending explained:
The Secret Older Guy
Pip is devastated by Barney’s death and decides to focus on her exams for the time being. It is then that she gets a call from Naomi from the number she found in the hotel’s guest book.
Naomi tells Pip that she is calling from her father’s old phone, leading Pip to realize that the Secret Older Guy Andie was dating is Elliot.
Pip then hides her phone in Elliot’s car to track him and discovers that he has been visiting an old house his family thinks he sold.
Suspecting that Andie is still alive and being held captive in that house, Pip asks Ravi to call the police while she goes to confront Elliot alone.
Elliot confesses to having a relationship with Andie and meeting her at the hotel before she started dating Sal. He tells Pip that Andie blackmailed him for money right before she disappeared.
When Elliot refused to give her the money, Andie lost her temper and started hitting him. Elliot pushed Andie off, resulting in her getting a head injury and leaving.
Pip believes Elliot’s account but then hears a sound, which leads her to the attic. Pip is shocked to find a young girl locked in the attic.
The girl reveals that Elliot found her on the street, took her to his house to help her, and confessed to drugging and killing Sal.
When she tried to escape, Elliot locked her in the attic, where he now locks Pip as well. However, thanks to Ravi, the police arrive in time, arrest Elliot, and rescue the two girls.
A new suspect
Elliot is charged with killing Sal and Andie. Now that Pip and Ravi have succeeded in proving Sal’s innocence, Ravi plans to leave town.
However, Pip believes that her investigation is not yet over. Elliot denies killing Andie, and Pip believes him, as she realizes that Elliot was out of town the day Barney was killed.
Pip was being threatened by someone else as well, which means that there is more to the case. Pip then pays Elliot a visit in prison.
Elliot confesses that when Andie went missing, he feared that his illicit relationship with her would come out and that he would be blamed for her murder.
To save himself, he framed Sal and killed him. Elliot suspects Andie’s father, Jason, whom both Andie and her sister, Becca, feared.
Andie was selling drugs and blackmailing Elliot for money because she planned to run away from home, unwilling to live under her father’s control.
Elliot also tells Pip that Jason lied to the police about his alibi; he saw Jason driving his truck at the time he claimed to be at a dinner party.
Who killed Andie?
Pip wants to find proof against Jason, but Ravi refuses to join Pip in her investigation. He is leaving town and does not want to get involved in the case further.
Pip tries to find the truck that Jason was seen driving on the night of Andie’s disappearance and runs into Jesse, a girl who had saved her at the rave party.
Jesse, who works for Jason, reveals that Jason is not guilty; on the night of Andie’s disappearance, he left the party momentarily because of an alarm going off at work.
Furthermore, Jason had to be stern with his daughters because they kept getting into trouble. Becca was even drugged and sexually assaulted at a rave party.
As Pip has seen the list of Andie’s clients, she figures out that Max was the one who drugged Becca and sexually assaulted her.
Pip also realizes that Becca, the last person to have seen Andie alive, was involved in Andie’s death. Pip then questions Becca, who reveals the entire truth.
After meeting Elliot, an injured Andie returned home. Becca asked her to accompany her to the police to report Max for assaulting her at the party.
However, Andie refused, informing her sister that she supplied the drug to Max and would be charged with dealing drugs if Becca went to the police.
Becca further found out that Andie was planning to run away from home. This led to Becca pushing Andie, who hit her head once again. The two head injuries resulted in her death.
Becca threatened Pip and killed Barney to keep the truth from coming out. She now drugs Pip and takes her to see Andie’s body, planning to kill her.
Becca had disposed of Andie’s body in a well in the middle of the woods and almost succeeds in killing Pip as well.
Fortunately, Ravi, worried about Pip, tracks her location with Cara’s help, and Pip is rescued. Becca is arrested, bringing Pip’s investigation to an end.
Pip and Ravi have developed feelings for each other while working together and now start dating. Pip decides that her next task will be to bring Max to justice for his wrongdoings.
