Down Cemetery Road – Mick Herron

A thriller with wit and dark intent is just my cup of tea. Give it a female lead and I tend to like it even more.
 
This is the first in the Zoë Boehm series, although it would be more accurate to call them the Zoë Boehm and Sarah Tucker novels. An engaging protagonist, smart asides, plenty of intrigue and believable scenes make it a fine read.
 
The only way it falls down for me is that Herron sometimes makes hints about character or allusions to events that want to be returned to, developed or shown to be motivation, but are then left behind. An idea is sometimes introduced that could be made into a theme and then go towards tying the narrative together, but he doesn’t take advantage of the opportunity. The same goes for imagery. Down Cemetery Road was his first book and I wonder if he puts this right in later novels.
 
He’s better at working with characters who are basically decent people, possibly because he has more time for them. The baddies in this book have no saving graces and it kind of makes them into ciphers.
 
What you can’t fault is his neat, acerbic humour. By way of example: “a daytime burglary that went ‘tragically wrong’, according to the paper, as if there were some ideal template of burglary that this had failed to live up to.”

I might gripe a bit, but I’d certainly give another by Mick Herron a go. Maybe one of his Slough House “Slow Horses” books.