The first novel from Mick Herron, better known as the author of the Slow Horses series, has recently been adapted for television by Apple. The series stars one of my favorites, Emma Thompson, as private detective Zoe Bloom. This book is marketed as the first entry in “the Zoe Bloom series.” But for all that, there’s precious little Zoe Bloom in it.
Our focus is primarily on Sarah Tucker, an Oxford housewife (of the reluctant variety.) Sarah is begrudgingly hosting a dinner party for one of her husband Mark’s potential fat cat clients when a bomb goes off down the street, killing two people and injuring a small child. When the child seemingly vanishes into the system, Sarah gets involved despite having no connection to the victims. Eventually, she hires a detective named Joe to try and track the little girl down, unwittingly setting in motion a chain of events that will forever change her life.
Herron peppers the narrative with occasional glimpses into a shadowy branch of the UK government, a secret agency working to maintain national security at all costs. A suit named Howard, a calculating monster named Amos, and his ruthless brother Axel are all dead set on keeping Sarah and Joe from finding that lost little girl.
I’ve only read one other Herron novel (the first Slow Horses book) so I don’t have a lot to go on, but this book really irritated me with the way it handled plot revelations. It often seemed like Herron was sneering at the reader, pointlessly gloating over information he possessed that we did not. Often he held back information far too long, resulting in the reader no longer caring for the revelation by the time Herron finally got around to it.
Down Cemetery Road sets up a nearly impossible mission for Sarah and, eventually, Zoe Bloom. How do you go up against a shadowy government agency with a license to kill? Even if you find what you’re looking for, how do you keep yourself alive long enough for it to matter?
Unfortunately, Herron isn’t particularly interested in answering the questions of readers. Down Cemetery Road has one of the more abrupt endings I can ever remember reading, with several huge questions remaining unanswered.
Perhaps those answers are contained in the next book in the series, but if so, I might never find out.
