Labyrinthine detective treat has cast chemistry to die for

Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson pull out all the stops in 'Down Cemetery Road', a nervy and archly funny conspiracy thriller from the 'Slow Horses' stable

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Before he published his first spy novel, Slow Horses, and before Gary Oldman shuffled through Slough House in an irascible, flatulent haze, Mick Herron wrote Down Cemetery Road, about an Oxford private eye called Zoë Boehm. It was excellent, that mordant Herron narrative voice, so vital to the success of Slow Horses' Apple TV adaptation, already permeating the pages.

Little wonder, then, his 2003 debut has now been given the Apple treatment. Emma Thompson plays the cynical, spiky-haired Boehm; Ruth Wilson is art restorer Sarah Tucker, who hires the investigator after her excruciating dinner party is abruptly ended by a gas main exploding on her quiet street. It’s adapted by Morwenna Banks, a scriptwriter on