Mick Herron's debut novel introducing Sarah Tucker a bored housewife whose search for a missing child stumbles on a dangerous conspiracy upending everything she thought she knew about everyone in her life and almost ending in her death is a brilliantly executed first novel showing many of the traits of unexpected twists and turns one finds in his later works in the Sleigh House series. highly entertaining and unpredictable. Well worth the read and leaves you wanting more .

Down Cemetery Road is the first book in the Oxford Investigations series by British author, Mick Herron. Her career stalled, Sarah Tucker is an unenthusiastic housewife when, during a painful dinner party with someone her husband is trying to impress, a bomb blows up the house down the street. Young widow Maddie Singleton and an unknown male die in the explosion, but four-year-old Dinah miraculously survives.

Sarah is unsure why she wants to know the child’s fate, but she goes looking, and keeps hitting brick walls: at the hospital and at the police station. She ends up talking to Joe Silvermann at Oxford Investigations. Joe can’t find Dinah Singleton, but he does learn some other intriguing facts. These facts, and some educated hunches set them on a path they may regret. Joe’s partner, Zoe Boehm eventually has no choice but to get involved.

Herron gives the reader an excellent tale in this, his debut, novel. If it seems like it starts a bit slowly, that’s probably just Herron’s way of setting up the story, the characters and the general atmosphere. The plot is easily believable, with quite a few twists and red herrings before a very exciting climax. There are plenty of bodies, not all of them dead, as well as guns, razors, helicopters, boats, pills, soldiers, lovers and dental floss.

Joe seems to be a bit of a bumbling detective whose manner belies his abilities; Sarah takes hold of the wrong end of the stick and is reluctant to relinquish it; Zoe proves to be a capable investigator, so it is no surprise that she features in the next three books of the series. Readers familiar with his Slough House series will already be aware that Herron does not hesitate to kill off a character when the plot requires it, so perhaps don’t get to attached to any of the characters too soon. Fans will be eager to read the second instalment, The Last Voice You Hear.