Zoë Boehm & Joe Silvermann

Created by Mick Herron

“Oxford Town, Oxford Town,
Guns and clubs followed (her) down…”

Presenting the anti-Nick and Nora.

Whereas Dashiell Hammett‘s fun-loving, cocktail-swilling detecting duo of Nick and Nora Charles were obviously in love and generally having — beyond a few troublesome homicides — a hell of a time, Mick Herron’s pair of uneasily married Oxford private investigators ZOË BOEHM and JOE SILVERMANN seemed to be having no fun at all, with their marriage more like an ongoing verbal brawl of insults, accusations and anger. All in all, they appeared, sometimes working together and sometimes flying solo, in four novels and five short stories.

They make for one of the more memorable — if not particularly well-functioning —detecting duos in the Shamus Game.

Zoe’s the star of this odd couple, and the brains of the outfit — just ask her. She’s coldly cynical, a forty-something (“five foot nine, dark-eyed, curly black hair” and favors a black leather jacket) computer whiz who rarely leaves the office, and isn’t particularly fond of most people — up to and including Joe. So instead she works her computer, performing background checks and skip traces, which account for most of Oxford Investigation’s income. A fact she’s constantly pointing out to the hapless, more idealistic Joe.

In fact, Emma Thompson’s spot-on portrayal of Zoe on Apple’s 2025 television adaptation of the novel occasionally makes Gary Oldman’s Jackson Lamb (of the author’s Slow Horses series) look like Winnie the Pooh. She’s unapologetically (and deliciously) disagreeable, cold and cruel.

Joe? He’s the dreamer of the pair, a well-intentioned but helpless romantic clearly in love with (and in awe of) his wife. He’s also in love with the notion of being a hard-boiled gumshoe, just like in his beloved detective novels.  His mantra, oft repeated?

“What would Marlowe do?”

Unfortunately for Joe, it’s Zoë who’s virtually the epitome of the hard-boiled dick — the shrewd bullshit detector who spots the scam, sniffs out the con, cracks the case and inevitably yanks her overwhelmed husband out of the mess he’s made of things.

And still the dude loves her.

But even then, the author plays fast and loose with series expectations. Although the novels are mostly Zoë’s turf, Joe is already on his way out in the first novel, Down Cemetery Road (2003), although Zoë does think of him occasionally in later novels, if not quite fondly.

But then,  Zoë isn’t even really the star, either, in that first book of the series. Sarah Tucker, a freelance publisher, ostrich farmer and unhappily married woman whose neighbour’s house blows up, is in the spotlight for most of it. The book got an advance of 2,000 British pounds, few reviews, and even fewer sales, although the author persisted: Zoë returned in three more books. Meanwhile, Sarah returned in the final novel, Smoke and Whispers (2009), to identify Zoé’s body, fished out of the River Tyne in Newcastle.

Nobody, it seems, gets out of Mick Herron’s books unscathed. Or worse.

Fortunately both Zoë and Joe are alive and kicking (with Joe, as usual, in way over his head) in the short stories, which serve as prequels, are all set before the first novel. Throughout the stories, the Happy Couple tangle with their fraying marriage and all sorts of peculiar types, from crossbow-wielding jewel thieves and pretentious authors to blackmailed billionaires and Motown-loving murderers.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mick Herron is a British novelist and short story writer, best known for his acclaimed and darkly humorous Slough House books, about a team of MI5 screw-ups and misfits hoping to redeem themselves (without screwing up any further).  He was born in Newcastle and studied English at Oxford, and his work has won the CWA Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel, the Steel Dagger for Best Thriller, and the Ellery Queen Readers Award, and been nominated for the Macavity, Barry, Shamus, Theakstons Novel of the Year, the Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year  and numerous other awards. He currently lives in Oxford.

NOVELS

• Down Cemetery Road (2003) | Buy this book | Buy the audio | Kindle it!
• The Last Voice You Hear (2004) | Buy this book  | Buy the audio | Kindle it!
• Why We Die (2006) | Buy this book | Buy the audio | Kindle it!
• Smoke and Whispers (2009) | Buy this book | Buy the audio | Kindle it!

SHORT STORIES

• “Remote Control” (September/October 2007, EQMM)
• “The Other Half” (May 2008, EQMM)
• “Proof of Love”(September/October 2008, EQMM)
• Mirror Image” (June 2010, EQMM)
• “What We Do” by Mick Herron (September/October 2013, EQMM)

COLLECTIONS

• All The Livelong Day and Other Stories (2013) | Buy this book
  A collection of five short stories, including two featuring Joe and Zoë.
• Dolphin Junction (2021) | Buy this book | Buy the audio | Kindle it!
  Five standalones, four mystery Zoë and Joes, and a peek into the past of Slow Horse‘s Jackson Lamb.

TELEVISION

• DOWN CEMETERY ROAD
  (2025, Apple TV+)
  8 episodes
  Based on the novel by Mick Herron
  Written by Morwenna Banks
  Directed by Natalie Bailey
  Starring Emma Thompson as ZOË BOEHM
  and Adam Godley as JOE SILVERMAN
  With Ruth Wilson as Sarah Tucker
  Also starring Adeel Akhtar, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Tom Goodman-Hill, Darren Boyd, Tom Riley , Sinead Matthews, Ken Nwosu, Fehinti Balogun, Aiysha Hart, Steven Cree

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith, with special thanks to Kate Templton for helping to keep me (relatively) honest. Photo is of Emma Thompson in the Apple TV+ adaptation of Down Cemetery Road.