Diksha Sundriyal
In Netflix’s ‘A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder,’ a teenager resolves to dig up a case that she thinks was solved wrong. Five years ago, Andie Bell went missing, and her boyfriend, Sal Singh, emerged as the only suspect. As the cops closed in on him, he texted his confession and killed himself in the woods. This convinced everyone in the town of his guilt, except Pip. She feels that the case has a lot of loose ends that were not pursued, and Sal was a fall guy for someone else. As Pip dives into the case, her investigation threatens to reveal long-buried secrets and expose the killer, who is ready to do whatever it takes to protect themselves. With each step, Pip wades into danger. Her determination is inspiring, but it is also entirely fictional. SPOILERS AHEAD
Pip is a Fictional Teenage Detective in a Made-Up Story
‘A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder’ is a product of author Holly Jackson’s imagination. Her novel of the same name was published in 2019, with two more sequels, and features 17-year-old Pippa Fitz-Amobi as its protagonist. While the author turned towards a real British town to serve as the inspiration for the story’s setting in Little Kilton, she relied entirely on her imagination to form the character of Pip.
Jackson revealed that she was inspired to write the novel due to her obsession with true crime podcasts. She referenced ‘Serial,’ talking about how she jumped on the bandwagon when its first season came out and was totally taken in by the format and the storytelling. Since then, she has binged every true crime podcast and documentary she could get her hands on, and this is what she wanted to replicate while writing the story. She decided to go with a teenage detective because she wanted the amateurish touch along with the true crime angle and because the technology aspect of the story could also be highlighted with a teenage protagonist.
While Jackson knew the form the story would take, she was yet to figure out how to put Pip into a situation where she becomes obsessed with solving the case, and everyone around her accepts that. The idea came to her when she found out that her younger sister had done an Extended Project Qualification, aka an EPQ, for her final year of school. This, combined with her complete immersion in true crime podcasts, allowed Jackson to bring the ideas together and come up with the image of a teenager who decides to solve the case for her EPQ project.
When the novel was still in its initial stages, Jackson looked towards teenage girls around her to figure out what kind of person she wanted Pip to be. She picked up here-and-there details, like the part about Pip being “a homework addict,” which came from Jackson’s boyfriend’s sister, who was the same way. This added to Pip’s dedication to the case because it has an added incentive to improve her grades and prospects for university. However, this was just a jumping point, and once Jackson started writing the story, Pip took a life of her own and became an entirely different and original person.
For actress Emma Myers, who plays Pip in the Netflix series, it was easy to get to the character’s soul. Myers revealed that she had briefly toyed with the idea of joining the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit and becoming a profiler when she was younger. While she didn’t end up going down that road, she did share the flair for a good mystery with Pip. The actress found several similarities in her and Pip’s personalities. This connection helped her get a better grip on the character and embody it so she could become the Pip crafted by the author on the paper.
At the end of the day, what Jackson had in mind while writing Pip and her story was the drive to solve the case. She wanted to bring the Agatha Christie-esque charm to the mystery, and getting the detective right (like Christie’s Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple) was essential to making the story successful. Thus, she infused the fictional Pip with as much realism as possible, which is brought to life by Myers impeccably in the TV show.
Read More: A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder: Is Little Kilton a Real Town?
