Readers Guide for How to Get Away With Murder

Sam’s therapist discusses her possible return to work after a breakdown. She was groped by another detective on her team at the Met Police. He was transferred but not charged or disciplined.

As Sam is hearing home, she stumbles on a crime scene. A young woman’s body has been discovered in Holland Park. She calls her doctor. She’s ready to get back to work.

Harry, her supervisor, agrees to put her on the Holland Park case, the murder of a teen girl named Charlotte Mathers. He tells her that a copy of a book called How to Get Away with Murder by Denver Brady was found at the crime scene and he wants her to find the author.

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Denver Brady: he drowned a boy named Jono from his village.

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Sam reads Charlotte’s case file. She was strangled and posed under a tree with a carving that said CM+DB. She starts the Denver Brady book. Does he want to be found? Is it fiction? A prank?

Sam observes an interview of Charlotte’s friend Jessica: Charlotte was at her house and, because her father wasn’t answering his phone, left to walk home alone around 9 pm.

Sam walking home from the pub when she finds a sad stray dog.

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Denver Brady: his second murder was at university: Sarah.

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Sam arrives at work and Jessica is there, demanding an update. Sam goes to observe the interview of Charlotte’s uncle, Jack Mathers, then her father Nigel.

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Denver Brady: Sarah was a girl from the nearby convent school. He was obsessed with her but when their tryst went wrong, he strangled her.

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Sam wants to investigate Denver Brady’s website and the bank account connected to it. Also, she wants to try to match the details in his book with any real crimes.

Sam can’t help herself. She walks her new dog Tony (named after Denver Brady’s dog) to Charlotte’s house, where she questions the Mathers’s gardener.

Sam’s friend Claire, a linguist, read the Denver Brady book and thinks he’s from Northern England. Sam watches the media confronts Blakelaw at a press conference: is Charlotte’s killer a serial killer?

Taylor found the book’s printer: Rob Swinton, who recently left the country.

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Denver Brady: He found some of his victims while working the Samaritans hotline. Sean was a caller. He just came out to his family. DB got him to jump.

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Taylor finds a match to a real victim

On the train to Northern England, Taylor tells Sam that an arsonist burned down the book’s printing office. Sam gets information on the author’s bank account, but the money in it is automatically transferred to an account in Wales.

Taylor also tells her about Betty Brown, the victim. Betty’s case is the one that haunted DI Duggan.  She was killed in 2007 with a clock. The killer also broke Betty’s fingers, something that was not revealed to the press.

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Denver Brady: He met Betty Brown by ringing doorbells and pretending to have a broken down car. Her son tragically died after falling into a river on his way home from graduation. He hit Betty with a clock, stole her sapphire ring, and staged the scene as a robbery gone wrong.

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Sam’s father was abusive to her mother, perhaps what triggered her breakdown. Sam reflects that the night before, she got too drunk and Taylor had to take her back to her house. 

Taylor and Sam have the best leads: the bank account and the arson. Harry makes Sam the joint SIO. Tina Idris, the current SIO, objects.

The book money is clearly handles by money “mules:” it goes from the Scottish account to a Welsh one to a third in the Cayman Islands.

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A shelter calls to say they can take the stray dog. The owner of the Scottish account admits to being a mule. Neil Duggan emails her that he’s found a case of a young boy named Jonathan who drowned in a quarry in the 1990s. But his death was accidental; no one was swimming with him. 

Cecil Taylor, an MP and Adam’s father, shows up. 

Adam has found another parallel to the book: a man who says he was framed for the murder of Melanie Davison.

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Denver Brady:  Melanie was crying on a bench. She’s fighting with her boyfriend Richie. He followed them and drugged their wine delivery. He then beat Mel to death and stole her earrings, which he kept with Betty’s ring.

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They go to a prison to speak to Richie. On the way Sam tells Taylor that her mother died from a fall down the stairs. Hmmmm… Adam asks her if her mother’s death was investigated. She says yes, but her father was the only suspect and was alibied by a dozen police officers as being at the pub.

Taylor tells Richie that all the details of Melanie’s murder were in the public domain. But Richie says no, not the theft of Mel’s earrings.

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Denver Brady: He went to a conference, but left to follow Daisy, a barista. He killed her and left a pregnancy test with her finger prints on it. Daisy’s boyfriend was charged and tried but the case was found not proven.

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Sam and Taylor located Sean Lister, the guy that Denver claimed jumped off a bridge. He swears he met Denver but can’t remember his name. Sean is horrible and Taylor hits him. Sam deletes the recording and threatens Sean into silence. 

Sam has a theory: Betty was Bobby’s mother and Denver’s aunt

Sam’s theory: Bobby was Betty’s son who fell into a river on the way home from his graduation.

Lister said that Denver visited a friend at Newcastle University.  Taylor suggests that Betty suspected that Denver killed her son, so he killed her as well. Betty also changed her will, leaving all her money to the Salvation Army.

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Harry says that they ID’d a man buying petrol before the fire: Andrei Albescu. 

DI Duggan emails and says that Jemma died last year. He also thinks “Daisy” is based on a woman named Marguerite Moreau who was killed in Edinburgh.

They go to arrest Andrei. His wife says he’s at work. She’s about to hand Sam a business card when someone comes to the door.

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Once again, Taylor tries to tell her something that happened in Newcastle.

Harry shows up, disappointed that they weren’t able to arrest their suspect. Sam does not believe that Andrei is Denver.

Sam wonders if the killer’s book is just leading them astray

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Denver Brady: met one of his victims on the dark web. Gerry did creepy psychological experiments. Then he took a holiday and met Amy the love of his life.

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Dr. Thompson, her therapist, shows up at Sam’s work. He complains that Harry isn’t looking out for her. He says the trauma of finding both of her parents dead is being triggered.

But Sam is determined to catch the killer. Thompson offers to stay with her while she looks at Charlotte‘s crime scene photos for the first time. She thinks the killer was searching for something in Charlotte‘s bag. Probably the tracker he put in her backpack. 

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Taylor says that Andrei receives money from a Cayman bank account weekly. He was profiting from the book.

Sam says there are three possibilities: 1)  Denver murdered Charlotte; 2) a copycat murdered Charlotte; 3) Denver made the whole thing up.

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Denver Brady: Amy was a hustler who realized that Denver wanted to kill her. She was into it until she didn’t realize he was going to really do it.

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Amy shows up and believes she’s the book’s “Amy” character. She had a dodgy date years ago named Denver. He switched his accents around, and she thought he was a liar. She think her chapter sounds like revenge porn, and he was wearing a big sapphire ring on his finger.

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Andrei denies knowing anything about Charlotte, but he is familiar with the book. He wrote the book and says his name is Denver Brady. He asks to speak to his lawyer.

Sam just doesn’t believe Andrei killed Charlotte. But he does match the description that Rich Scott gave them.

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Denver Brady: things went wrong with a victim named Basil. He clobbered Denver, then triggered a panic alarm. Basil slashed Denver, who fell down the stairs. He wrote a confession: I am a serial killer.

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A nun shows up at the station and says that her friend Sarah got pregnant and took her own life. She left the nun a note, and some letters from a “BB.” There was nothing about Sarah’s death in the papers. Samantha realizes that Denver must’ve gone to the same school as Sarah. And the school is in same town where Betty lived. 

Spoilers for How to Get Away With Murder

Denver is Barry Brown

Sam thinks that while Andrei is guilty of something, he didn’t murdered anybody. Even if he wrote the book, most of the people in it were not murdered. Amy is alive. Sean is alive. Jonathan’s drowning was an accident. Sarah committed suicide and Basil survived. Denver’s only possible victims: Betty and Melanie.

Duggan calls and says that Betty‘s new will never got filed so her nephew Barry got all her money and then disappeared.

Sam leaves the station and goes to Holland Park. She still wonders why Charlotte called her uncle.

Jack was Charlotte’s Killer!

But how? Jack had an alibi and was far away from the murder scene. Jack put a tracker in Charlotte school bag and then drugged his brother. He did it for money. He killed Charlotte and was probably going to kill Nigel next.

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Andrei and his lawyer, Julius Windsor, arrive at the station. He tells Sam they have met before, when she was investigating cold cases. Sam says she does not need to talk to him about Charlotte‘s murder, but doesn’t understand why he burned down the printers office. Julius doesn’t allow Andrei to answer any questions.

Harry interrupts the interview to say that they found drafts of the murder book in Andrei’s home. They also found earrings and a sapphire ring. 

Sam insists that Andrei is not Denver but Harry doesn’t want to hear it. Harry pleads with her to go along. When she won’t, he suspends her. Taylor had to summon Harry for help when Sam got drunk and passed out.

Sam falls into a depression

She watches announcements of Jack being charged with Charlotte‘s murder and Andrei being charged as Denver. She takes the dog for a walk and sees a news report that Richie has been let out of prison. She finally understands it all. 

Andrei’s lawyer, Julius Windsor, is Denver Brady aka Barry Brown

He murdered his aunt Betty. Jonathan‘s death was an accident. Sarah took her own life. Sean isn’t dead. He read about Daisy the newspaper. Amy rejected him. Basil doesn’t exist.

Sam insists that Richie Scott killed Melanie. Sam tells Julius he is not a serial killer, just a boring person who murdered his aunt for money. She asks him if he killed Bobby.

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He says, “you think you’re the one who’s going to bring me down?” She says: “you’re not the only one who loves a good plot twist.”

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What Sam Does Next:

• She prepares to sell her house.
• She puts in a transfer to a different police force.
• Sam spies on Richie and his new girlfriend, Lindsay. She disguises herself with a wig and men’s clothing. 
• She gets his girlfriend Lindsay alone in the women’s bathroom and finds out Richie became abusive.

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She finishes packing up the house, then goes down to the basement to looks at her father‘s desk, where he shot himself.

Sam goes to visit Lindsay again. She’s not having luck convincing Lindsay to leave Ritchie. But finally, Lindsey agrees. Sam plants Lindsey’s phone (which Richie is tracking) at Julius Windsor’s house.

Adam Taylor texts her that Julius Windsor has been attacked and that Richie is on the run. She calls to check on Julius in the hospital and learned that he’s in critical condition.

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Then Sam hears someone outside her house. She’s left her door open and her baton in open view. 

A man dressed all in black steps in: Richie. She said she’ll tell him where Lindsay is, but wants to know what happened with Julius. 

Sam tasers Richie but he’s still able to chase her up the stairs, where she’s strung a cable and unscrewed the light bulb. She ducks under it, but he runs into it and falls down the stairs. 

She then hits Richie repeatedly with a baseball bat, saying she knows exactly how to get away with murder.

Sam puts Richis’s prints on the baseball bat, then cleans her taser and hides it. Then she calls 999 a claiming that a man tried to kill her and she defended herself.

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Sam wakes up in hospital. When she’s discharged, Chloe drives her home. Chloe mentions that Harry had an accident. Harry fell off a cliff and it sounds like Sam had something to do with it.

They discuss how which Julius is probably going be taken off life support.

Chloe asked her where Tony was when she was attacked, but he was at the vet having his teeth cleaned and his wonky leg fixed. Chloe mentioned that’s a big coincidence, and Sam changes the subject.

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Denver Brady: It’s important to find the weakness of your victim. Are they an alcoholic? Do they have allergies? Can they not swim? Don’t put anything in writing. You could try the self-defense ploy or the accident method or there’s always stage suicide. For instance, if someone falls asleep at their desk, you can sneak up and shoot them in the head, then place the gun in their hand.

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Who Murdered Whom?

Julius killed his cousin Bobby, then his aunt Betty.

Richie killed Melanie and then Julius.

Sam goaded Richie into attacking Julius, then killed Richie. It’s also strongly suggested that she killed both Harry and her father.

List of “Denver Brady’s” Murders in His Book

Victim One: As a teen, Denver says he drowned another boy, Jono. (fake, but based on a real accidental drowning)

Victim Two: a girl named Sarah at university. (fake; Sarah was a nun at a nearby convent who took her own life after. Barry/Denver was likely the baby’s father?)

Victim Three: DB: Sean was a caller into the Samaritans Hotline who just came out to his family. Denver got him to jump. (fake; the real Sam is alive and not gay)

Victim Four: Betty was a senior citizen he met by ringing doorbells and pretending to have a broken down car. Then he hit her with a clock. He stole her sapphire ring and staged the scene as a robbery gone wrong. (murder was true; she was his aunt, not a random person)

Victim Five: He found Melanie Dawson crying on a bench. She’s fighting with her boyfriend Richie. He followed them and drugged their wine delivery. He then beat Mel to death and stole her earrings, which he kept with Betty’s ring. (this happened, but I think Richie killed Mel and Denver/Barry killed Richie)

Victim Six: Denver was in the city for a conference, and left to follow Daisy, a barista. He asked her for directions. He killed her and left a pregnancy test with her finger prints on it. He rejoined the conference and made sure he was seen. Daisy’s boyfriend was charged and tried but the case was found not proven. (fake; based on a real case)

Victim Seven: On holiday, he met Amy. She was a hustler who realized that Denver wanted to kill her. Amy was into it, then realized he was going to do it. (fake; Amy is alive, Denver was her “weird date,” and she rejected him.)

Victim Eight: Things went wrong with a victim named Basil. He clobbered Denver, then triggered a panic alarm. Basil slashed Denver, who fell down the stairs. He wrote a confession: I am a serial killer. Is Basil dead or alive?

My Questions:

Do we all agree that:

1. Sam’s abusive father pushed her mother down the stairs to her death.
2. Ten years later, Sam then killed her father and staged it as a suicide? (She tells Richie that she “dealt with her daddy issues when she was nineteen.)
3. Then years after that, Sam seems to have used a chapter from Denver Brady’s book (the Basil chapter) to kill Richie?
4. She also seems to have killed BCI Blakelaw, probably for being her father’s alibi after he killed her mother.

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Here are some things I’d love to discuss:

The fact that when Julius comes to the police station to represent Andrei, he says to Sam: “We’ve met before, Detective. A couple of years ago. Back when you were investigating cold cases.” We know that Sam and Lowry investigated cold cases (including one in Middlesbrough) so I thought that was why Sam shut Julius down. But why did Lowry and Sam meet Julius?

Is it just a weird coincidence that Denver Brady’s book has someone falling down the stairs (like Sam’s mother) and someone who shoots their victim and stages it as a suicide (as it seems like Sam did) AND mentions the “Home Alone” booby trap that Sam used on Richie.

Did Barry Brown really write the book?