Down Cemetery Road–A Grave Drama

For fans of Mick Herron’s “Slow Horses”, the new series Down Cemetery Road is part of the  Zoë Boehm series featuring a tough-as-nails Oxford-educated detective (Emma Thompson) who takes no prisoners.  The other main character is a quixotic homemaker named Sarah Trafford (Ruth Wilson), whose husband is a cheating liar with little respect or regard for their marriage.

Down Cemetery Road opens with an explosion in a nearby home where a little girl has gone missing.  Trafford knows the parents and is unusually distraught that the search for the now orphaned little girl is directionless.  Her death is believed to be an accident. Trafford inadvertently has to team up with  Zoë Boehm  in order to prove that the girl is still alive and that skullduggery is to blame.  

The extent to which a corrupt government and military will devote a tremendous amount of personnel and funds in order to keep criminal activity hidden from its constituency is alarming.  And Down Cemetery Road excels in the quest by these two intrepid women to endanger their lives for the sake of  revealing the truth and saving a little girl in the process.

The performances of both Thompson and Wilson are superb, as well as that of the supporting cast.  However, the distracting ancillary scenes–overly long boat rides, hiding in order to avoid detection–slow the pace as well as the viewing interest of those who watch expecting more tension in the action scenes.  If not for the two exemplary performances by Thompson and Wilson, Down Cemetery Road would be difficult to continue to watch in during some of the sluggish episodes.  

The ending is set up for another season and the resolution of the mystery is satisfying and interesting enough to continue.

Availability:  Apple+