Derek Raymond – författare

»Ingen har kommit i närheten av att matcha Derek Raymonds stil eller den överväldigande känslan av galenskap i hans böcker.« THE TIMES»Allt med Jag var Dora Suarez skriker av njutningen och smärtan i att gå för långt.« THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW»Helvetiskt mörkt och berörande.« NEW STATESMANEn psykopatisk mördare skär unga Dora Suarez i bitar och krossar huvudet på hennes äldre väninna. Samma kväll får Felix Roatta, delägare i den sjaskiga nattklubben Parallel, sitt huvud sönderskjutet i West End.Den namnlöse berättaren, en kommissarie som arbetar på Metropolitan-polisens avdelning för ouppklarade dödsfall, utvecklar en fixering vid Dora Suarez. Och han upptäcker att hennes död är ännu mer bisarr än vad han först anat: Mördaren visar sig ha ätit bitar av kött från Suarez kropp och ejakulerat över hennes lår.Obduktionsresultaten komplicerar pusslet: Suarez var döende i AIDS, men patologen kan inte säga hur hon fått viruset. Sedan länkas Suarez till Roatta genom ett fotografi som kommissarien fått av en före detta servitris på Parallel och efterforskningar på klubben avslöjar den sällsynt vidriga och omänskliga exploatering som pågått där.Jag var Dora Suarez presenteras här för första gången på svenska, i översättning av Niklas Darke.DEREK RAYMOND [1931-1994] är en pseudonym för engelsmannen Robert Cook, som var son till en textilmagnat men hoppade av sina studier och tillbringade en stor del av sitt liv utomlands och bland kriminella. Cook arbetade bland annat som pornograf, pengatvättare, slaktare och taxichaufför. Hans författarskap kulminerade i en rad kriminalromaner med det samlande namnet »Factory«. Till dessa hör hans mästerverk, Jag var Dora Suarez.»Ingen har skrivit bättre varken i kriminalgenren eller någon annanstans om Englands tillstånd.« DAVID PEACE, författare till »Yorkshire-kvartetten«»Ingen som är intresserad av litteratur från den mänskliga erfarenhetens utkant, som undrar över kriminalromanens och själva litteraturens gränser, kan förbise Derek Raymond.« JAMES SALLIS»Mäktigt, hypnotiskt...« PUBLISHERS WEEKLY»Derek Raymond bereder ingen väg för kompromisser och halvfigurer. Det är svart eller vitt mestadels svart. Det är rakt igenom skoningslöst och psykotiskt. För den som vill utforska hjärnans mörkare sidor är det fascinerande läsning.« DEN DÖDA ZONEN

When a middle-aged alcoholic is found brutally battered to death on a roadside in West London, the case is assigned to a nameless detective sergeant, a tough-talking cynic and fearless loner from the Department of Unexplained Deaths at the Factory police station. Working from cassette tapes left behind in the dead man's property, 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, and that the most terrible of villains will also prove to be the most attractive. In the first of six police procedurals that comprise the Factory series, Derek Raymond spins a riveting, and vividly human crime drama. Relentlessly pursuing justice for the dispossessed, his detective narrator treads where few others dare: in the darkest corners of London, a city of sin plagued by unemployment, racism and vice, and peopled by a cast of low-lifes, all utterly convincing and brought to life by Raymond's pitch-perfect dialogue.

An axe-wielding psychopath carves young Dora Suarez into pieces and smashes the head of Suarez's friend, an elderly woman. On the same night, in the West End, a firearm blows the top off the head of Felix Roatta, part-owner of the seedy Parallel Club. The unnamed narrator, a sergeant in the Metropolitan Police's Unexplained Deaths division, develops a fixation on the young woman whose murder he investigates. And he discovers that Suarez's death is even more bizarre than suspected: the murderer ate bits of flesh from Suarez's corpse and ejaculated against her thigh. Autopsy results compound the puzzle: Suarez was dying of AIDS, but the pathologist can't tell how the virus was introduced. Then a photo, supplied by a former Parallel hostess, links Suarez to Roatta, and inquiries at the club reveal how vile and inhuman exploitation can become. I Was Dora Suarez is the fourth book in the Factory series

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.

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.

A man's corpse is discovered in a Rotherhithe warehouse, chopped up, boiled to avoid identification, and bundled into five Waitrose carrier bags. Our nameless narrator from A14 - the 'Unexplained Deaths' division of the Met - is put on the case. Operating, as usual, with his wit and sheer nerve in place of adequate resources and contacts, the narrator's investigations uncover much more than the murderer. As he probes a world of horror in South London, a terrible secret from his own past emerges. 'A bizarre mixture of Chandleresque elegance... and naked brutality' Daily Telegraph 'Hellishly bleak and moving' New Statesman 'Superb... an English Chandler... only better' Daily Mail

This, the third novel in the Factory Series, sees Raymond's nameless detective leave London for a remote village called Thornhill, where he's meant to be looking into the disappearance of a local doctor's wife. How The Dead Live is a haunting, fantastical novel, with a hellish country house at its centre; a mystery with little interest in the mystery, a police procedural with almost no procedure. Instead, and as ever with Raymond, it's a brilliantly unsettling investigation into love and damnation. This is life seen from the very bottom of the bottle - a fitting succesor to classic noir writers such as Jim Thompson and David Goodis.