Derek Raymond

“A unique crime writer whose fictional world was brutal, realistic and harrowing in the extreme.”—Guardian When a middle-aged alcoholic is found brutally battered to death on a roadside in West London, the case is assigned to a tough-talking cynic from the Department of Unexplained Deaths. Our narrator must piece together the history of his blighted existence and discover the agents of its cruel end. What he doesn’t expect is that digging for the truth will demand plenty of lying. The first volume in the Factory series, He Died with His Eyes Open is a gripping introduction to Raymond’s bleak, nihilistic world.

He Died with His Eyes Open

I WAS DORA SUAREZ

A man’s corpse is discovered in a London warehouse, bundled into five shopping bags. Our nameless narrator from the Unexplained Deaths division of the Met is put on the case. As he probes a world of horror in South London, a terrible secret from his own past emerges, and he uncovers much more than the murderer. Derek Raymond is the father of British noir and much admired by a new generation of crime writers. He died in 1994.

The Devil's Home on Leave

Dead Man Upright

When a woman disappears and her husband seems reluctant to find her, the case filters down to the Department of Unexplained Deaths, where one cop takes the case and finds himself on London's seamy South Side.

How the Dead Live

Atti privati in luoghi pubblici

Gli inquilini di Dirt Street

Not Till the Red Fog Rises

The autobiography of Derek Raymond - Fifties wide-boy and amateur art-dealer, Sixties mainstream novelist and Eighties crime-writer. It reflects the contradictions in his personality - a mixture of bleakness and urbanity, black despair and courteous generosity.

The Hidden Files

Crust on Its Uppers (A Five Star Title)

England is ruled by Jobling, a dictator with an efficient secret police and a long memory. Richard Watt used all his journalistic talents to expose Jobling before he came to power. Now, in exile in Italy, Watt cultivates his vineyards. His rural idyll is shattered by the arrival of an emissary from London. Derek Raymond's deft skill is to make all too plausible the transition to dictatorship in an England obsessed with ?looking after number one'. First published in 1970, A State of Denmark is a classic.

A State of Denmark

A plain-clothes copper in Paris, Kleber is 40 years old, drinks hard and smokes fifty a day. He is devoted to his young wife, Elenya, a former prostitute whom he rescued from her pimp, but he is embittered by 22 years on the streets, and his sleep is haunted by dreams of death. Kleber has many enemies, and only one friend: a criminal named Mark. When Kleber is suspended from the police force for punching a fellow officer, his underworld adversaries seize their chance to bring him to heel. Down but not out, Kleber will show no mercy to those who harm the ones he loves. Derek Raymond's final book ? the typescript was discovered after his death in 1994 ? Nightmare in the Street is a fitting finale to a career spent writing about, and indeed living among, the darkest reaches of humanity.

Nightmare in the Street

"In Derek Raymond's most talked-about novel--indeed, in what may be one of the most talked-about crime novels ever--the reader is immediately plunged into the horrific mind of one of the most brutally damaged and murderous killers the unnamed Detective Sergeant has ever faced: a deranged axe-murderer. But why the victim--the gentle Dora Suarez--was murdered at all becomes the Sergeant's obsession, especially as he digs deeper into a diary she left behind and learns she was already dying of AIDS. So why kill her?"--P. [4] of cover.

I Was Dora Suarez

First published in 1962, The Crust On Its Uppers, Derek Raymond's first novel (written when he was Robin Cook) is a gripping tale of class betrayal. With ruthless precision, and a great deal of humour, it brings vividly to life a London of spivs, crooked toffs and bent coppers.

The Crust On Its Uppers

It is the 1960s. England has become a dictatorship, governed by a sly, ruthless politician called Jobling. All non-whites have been deported, The English Times is the only newspaper, and ordinary people live in dread of nightly curfews and secret police. Richard Watt used all his journalistic talents to expose Jobling before he came to power. Now in exile in a farmhouse amid the cruel heat of the Italian countryside, Watt cultivates his vineyards. His remote rural idyll is shattered by the arrival of an emissary from London. Derek Raymond?s skill is to make all too plausible the transition from complacent democracy to dictatorship in a country preoccupied by consumerism and susceptible to media spin. First published in 1970, Raymond?s brilliant satire is as dark and frightening as ever.

The third of the Factory series of bleak, atmospheric and subversive crime novels. The nameless detective working in the Unexplained Deaths division of the Met is sent to Wiltshire, where the local police are reluctant to investigate the strange disappearance of a popular local woman.

As it turns out, a dead man can tell stories... Murders are a dime a dozen in Margaret Thatcher's London, and when it comes to the brutal killing of a middle-aged alcoholic found dumped outside of town, Scotland Yard has more important cases to deal with. Instead it's a job for the Department of Unexplained Deaths and its head Detective Sergeant. With only a box of cassette-tape diaries as evidence the rogue detective has no chouce but to listen to the haunting voice of the victim for clues to his gruesome end. The first book in Derek Raymond's acclaimed Factory Series is an unflinching yet deeply compassionate portrait of a city plagued by poverty and perversion, and a policeman who may be the only one who cares about the "people who don't matter and who never did."

A plain-clothes copper in Paris, Kleber is 40 years old, drinks hard and smokes fifty a day. He is devoted to his young wife, Elenya, a former prostitute whom he rescued from her pimp, but he is embittered by 22 years on the streets, and his sleep is haunted by dreams of death. Kleber has many enemies, and only one friend: a criminal named Mark. When Kleber is suspended from the police force for punching a fellow officer, his underworld adversaries seize their chance to bring him to heel. Down but not out, Kleber will show no mercy to those who harm the ones he loves. Derek Raymond?s final book ? the typescript was discovered after his death in 1994 ? Nightmare in the Street is a fitting finale to a career spent writing about, and indeed living among, the darkest reaches of humanity.

'It's a tale of someone who wanted to go and go-who was sick of the dead-on-its-feet upper crust he was born into, that he didn't believe in, didn't want, whose values were meaningless, that did nothing but hold him back from his first nanny onwards. I wanted to chip my way out of that background which held me like a flea in a block of ice, and crime was the only chisel I could find.' First published in 1962, The Crust on Its Uppers, Derek Raymond's first novel (written when he was Robin Cook) is a gripping tale of class betrayal. With ruthless precision, it brings vividly to life a Britain of spivs, crooked toffs and bent coppers - in fact, a Britain that in its bare essentials has changed little over the last 30 years.

Derek Raymond

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