<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t have to speak algorithm to understand why Apple TV might have gone for Down Cemetery Road<\/em>. It\u2019s based on author Mick Herron\u2019s first series of books<\/a>. Slow Horses<\/em>, Apple\u2019s last series adapted from Herron, has been one of the streamer\u2019s biggest hits. Slow Horses <\/em>is brilliant, but its formula is eminently repeatable \u2013 take Herron\u2019s excellent novels with a central character who is dishevelled but larger than life, pack the script with a very British form of wit and snark, set it in a memorable locale and people it with Emmy-bait actors.<\/p>\n And so, just as the fifth series of Slow Horses<\/em> concludes<\/a>, we get Down Cemetery Road<\/em>. As Herron\u2019s readers will know, this time we have swapped genres from espionage to crime drama and we are in Oxford, not London. But in the form of Zo\u00eb Boehm (Emma Thompson<\/a>) we have a lead detective who, on reflection, one would very much like to see lock horns with Gary Oldman\u2019s lead spy Jackson Lamb. She is every bit as bright, brilliant, cynical, sarcastic, badly-dressed, unhygienic and unlikely.<\/p>\n Down Cemetery Road <\/em>is a thriller delivered with such confidence that we don\u2019t even meet Boehm until the end of the first hour. Instead, we get to enjoy Ruth Wilson<\/a> delivering a performance every bit as mesmeric as Thompson\u2019s.<\/p>\n Wilson plays Sarah Trafford, an Oxford art restorer of the sort who tucks her cardigan into her cords, who decides to investigate when a house on her street explodes, killing two adults. Sarah becomes obsessed with what has happened to their young daughter, as no one else seems interested, and ends up going to Boehm\u2019s husband Joe (Adam Godley), also a private detective. But, let\u2019s just say further events<\/em> make it obvious that the disappeared girl is linked to a much bigger plot.<\/p>\n This being a Herron adaptation, it won\u2019t surprise you to learn that this one goes \u201call the way to the top\u201d. A massive establishment cover-up is duly exposed while a revenge plot with an assassin out to get Boehm provides the dramatic fuel.<\/p>\n Much of this is enabled by a series of convenient McGuffins that suggest writer Morwenna Banks may be more interested in character than plot \u2013 a scarf that keeps appearing; a pair of obviously suspect neighbours. She also has much more time for her female characters than her male ones \u2013 Darren Boyd\u2019s Secret Service supremo is so pompous and entitled, Adeel Akhtar\u2019s bumbling operative so entirely useless that they both become caricatures.<\/p>\n