The Road Less Traveled

I've praised the Apple TV+ show Slow Horses on more than one occasion -- and it's been in my Top TV shows list every year since I started making one. But now, Slow Horses is not the streaming service's only thriller adapted from a book series by Mick Herron... not now that we also have Down Cemetery Road.

Based on the series The Oxford Investigations (which Herron wrote before beginning the Slough House series), this show centers on Sarah Tucker, a suburban woman who one day meets a little girl by chance on the way home from work... and is then dumbfounded when the girl is injured and orphaned in a fiery explosion. After strange stonewalling from law enforcement, she engages a private detective to dig around -- and is soon being pursued herself as a loose end in an elaborate and dangerous conspiracy.

You might have guessed that Down Cemetery Road sprang from the same mind as Slow Horses -- and even that it actually came earlier. That's because the two series have a tremendous amount in common. There's a common themes in what government entities will do to hide inconvenient problems. The main protagonist is decidedly not a "best of the best" character (though in Slow Horses, River Cartwright often thinks he is). And in both stories, there's a surly, crass curmudgeon who gets things done, played by a great British actor who's decided to try a television series.

In Down Cemetery Road, that's Emma Thompson, whose investigator Zoë Boehm is fun to watch even if she'd be a pain to interact with in real life. Thompson deftly threads the "lovably unlikeable" needle with sarcastic wit and stern physicality. Starring as Sarah, Ruth Wilson completely sheds her villainous past on His Dark Materials to play a clever-yet-desperate woman way in over her head. Either Thompson or Wilson are in almost every scene of the show (at least, the ones that aren't giving us dangerous villains to gleefully root against). Together, the two of them are a great pair to anchor an intriguing story.

But I'll be honest -- it's also a really convoluted story. Down Cemetery Road runs eight episodes, where a season of Slow Horses runs a tight six, and I sometimes felt the extra "weight" of that. I assume the show to be a rather faithful adaptation... but of a book Mick Herron wrote many years before he began the Slough House series. Though I have yet to read one of his books, it's safe to say that any craftsperson improves their craft over time.

I feel like Down Cemetery Road reflects this in almost every way. As I said, the plot is convoluted, truly hard to hold in your head over the course of eight episodes. The suspense is not quite as heightened, with the cat-and-mouse games not quite as varied as the action in a season of Slow Horses. And through absolutely no "fault" of Emma Thompson's, Zoë Boehm isn't quite the indelible character that Jackson Lamb is. Oftentimes, Down Cemetery Road feels like "the first draft."

Still... if that's what it is, it's a fine first draft. There are many characters besides the two leads, and a lot of them "pop" as interesting people to watch -- sympathetic, or loathsome, or frightening -- each just as they're meant to be. The television production is top notch, with extensive shooting on location to give the story great scope. And the final two episodes of the show serve up a rousing climax that's just what a thriller audience tunes in for. 

So no, Down Cemetery Road may not be as good as Slow Horses (and didn't crack my Top 10 List for 2025), but still... if you like one, I find it impossible to believe you wouldn't like the other. I give Down Cemetery Road a B. It was recently announced that Down Cemetery Road will return for another season, and I plan to watch when it does.