It’s not every day you get an actress of Emma Thompson’s caliber playing a sharp-witted detective on TV. There’s also something deliciously British and subversive about the way Down Cemetery Road presents itself. Adapted by Morwenna Banks from Mick Herron’s novel — the same author behind Slow Horses — the Apple TV+ production starts as a domestic story in Oxford and quickly morphs into an espionage thriller steeped in irony, guilt, and government conspiracy.

An accidental heroine

Sarah Tucker (Ruth Wilson, in top form) is a smart, sardonic art restorer, gifted with a sensitivity that spots what others try to erase — whether in an old painting or in an official lie. Living in a perfect house and a stagnant marriage with Mark, she seems to be searching for a bigger purpose, and chance provides it.

During a chaotic dinner with arrogant clients from the bank where her husband works, an explosion at a neighboring house rips the night apart. From the rubble, firefighters rescue a little girl, Dinah, the sole survivor — the same child Sarah had passed on her bicycle a few hours earlier.

The spark of a conspiracy

Curious and unwilling to look away, Sarah tries to drop off a note at the hospital for the girl, but is met with hostility. Evasive nurses, “confidential” files, digitally altered photos: everything points to a cover-up. Using her restorer’s lenses, she realizes the official photo of the accident was manipulated — Dinah literally erased from the picture.

Meanwhile, we meet agent Hamza Malik, who works in a shadowy department called Intelligence and Threats. He discovers the “accident” was in fact a botched covert operation, and the government is now trying to sweep away every trace of it. Including the child herself.

Zoë Boehm enters the frame

Trying to grasp what’s going on, Sarah ends up at the door of private investigators Zoë Boehm (Emma Thompson) and Joe Silvermann (Adam Godley), who run “Oxford Investigations.” She asks for help to track Dinah, convinced the girl is in danger. While Zoë doubts the story, Joe sees an opportunity — and perhaps a flicker of heroism that brings him closer to his wife again. Banks’s script balances humor and cynicism with sharp dialogue, recalling the best moments of classic noir.

But what begins as a deduction game quickly turns tragic. Dinah is hurriedly removed from the ICU, and Sarah witnesses the child’s abduction, getting knocked off her bike by a white van when she tries to intervene. When she finally runs back to tell Joe what she saw, she finds him dead — the crime staged as a suicide. The suspense thickens and the tone hardens: the game is over.

The echo of Slow Horses

The Down Cemetery Road premiere carries the same acidic, political DNA as Slow Horses. Cutting British humor, disdain for bureaucracy, and the magnetic presence of two powerhouses — Ruth Wilson and Emma Thompson — make the series a feast for anyone who loves espionage thrillers with a human core.

The direction leans on pace, precise dialogue, and an atmosphere that blends collegiate charm with institutional paranoia. As with Slow Horses, the show’s great strength lies in the collision of the banal and the ominous — everyday life suddenly revealing the monster underground.

A model first episode

Without resorting to flashbacks or didactic explanations, the pilot spins its web with agility: an explosion, a missing girl, a lying government, a woman who refuses to stop asking questions. Ruth Wilson turns Sarah into a kind of reluctant detective, and Emma Thompson, even in limited screen time, owns every second as Zoë Boehm — an enigmatic, sardonic figure with a past still to be revealed. Out of love for the husband she did care for, she resolves to carry on the investigation.

The result is a modern thriller with a classic soul: witty, elegant, and dangerously engrossing. A mystery about what happens when an ordinary person decides not to pretend they didn’t see.