Secret Service review: This spy story may have Bond yawning, but it is an efficient, effective thriller

There are no explosions, no gadgets, and no Martinis, either shaken or stirred.

There is a Bond girl, however, in Gemma Arterton. She played the fruitily-named Strawberry Fields in Daniel Craig's second outing as 007, Quantum of Solace.

There she ended up dead in a hotel room, having been smothered in crude oil. In Secret Service, however, the only oil she gets close to is the extra virgin in a salad dressing.

She plays Kate Henderson, the head of MI6's Russia desk, but also a wife to Home Office policy wonk Stuart (Rafe Spall) and mother to a recalcitrant teenage daughter.

Thus we get scenes of domesticity at home – packing lunches, parent-teacher evenings – crossed with similarly static scenes of Kate and her team of spooks sitting in hotel rooms listening to wiretaps, or struggling with spy bureaucracy and the need to account for every penny spent.

Kate has an asset inside the household of a top Russian minister, on holiday in Malta. When a Kremlin heavy turns up, the bug placed by the asset picks up talk which strongly suggests a mole inside the government.

Could it be a Russian bluff, or is the mole real, and threatening national security? Much of the first two episodes is taken up with meetings debating the merits of the intelligence, but by the end of the second instalment, the pace picks up and bodies start to fall.

Unlike the labyrinthine thrillers of Le Carre, Secret Service – based on a novel by News at 10 anchor Tom Bradby – is pretty workmanlike and straightforward.

There are red herrings placed, and pointers to the mole seem so conveniently placed that it's almost certain they will turn out to be misdirection, with one particularly suspicious phone call in the first episode signposting who the real villain of the piece is.

But it is light on the paranoia of a good spy thriller - the constant feeling that someone you like will end up dead or betray Kate to the Kremlin is frustratingly absent.

Meanwhile, it plays up the spy tropes, from the Third Man-style, zithery theme tune to the anxious wait to learn if the bug has been discovered, to MI6 boss C's wood-panelled, double-doored office.

That's not to say that Secret Service is bad. It's plot may rely on the hoary old spy standby of the search for a mole, but it offers up enough suspects and clues to keep you interested.

Malta looks lovely throughout, and the idea that security service red tape might actually be a greater threat to national security than the Russians is a neat one.

And the stakes are high, not just for the country, but for Kate herself – her happy home life could be blown up by an op gone wrong or a misplaced word in the wrong ear. Her boss is already threatening to demote her, and that's before someone gets shot in the head.

Meanwhile, the cast is excellent, featuring an array of top TV names from Mark Stanley to Rochenda Sandall and Lydia Leonard, while Alex Kingston and the velvet-voiced Roger Allam pop up from time to time to add a touch of class to proceedings.

Secret Service is a competent, efficient, effective thriller. And when the alternative is Bond leaving a trail of bodies behind him, who wouldn't want spies like that?