Synopses & Reviews
Which is worse: A psychopathic killer or murderous corruption?The second book in Derek Raymond's acclaimed Factory Series opens with the chilling discovery of a horribly butchered body abandoned in a warehouse by the Thames. It's obviously the work of a contract killer, but why would a professional leave the body for discovery?
With his usual mix of cunning and nerve, the unnamed Detective Sergeant from the Unexplained Deaths Department stands up to both mobsters and his superiors to get to the truth. He soon finds himself engaged in a harrowing game of cat-and-mouse with a psychopathic murderer who seems to have ties to the highest levels of the British government.
When one of his superiors warns him to back off, saying, "You'll always get the shitty end of the stick," he explains, "Maybe, but I think that's the end where the truth is."
About the Author
Derek Raymond was the pseudonym of British writer Robert Cook, who was born in London in 1931. The son of a textile magnate, he dropped out of Eton and rejected a life of privilege for a life of adventure. He traveled the world, living in Paris at the Beat Hotel and on New York’s seedy Lower East Side, smuggled artworks into Amsterdam, and spent time in a Spanish prison for publicly making fun of Franco. Finally, he landed back in London, working in the lower echelons of the Kray Brothers’ crime syndicate laundering money, organizing illegal gambling, and setting up insurance scams. He eventually took to writing—first as a pornographer, but then as an increasingly serious novelist, writing about the desperate characters and experiences he’d known in London’s underground. His work culminated in the Factory novels, landmarks that have led many to consider him the founding father of British noir. He died in London in 1993.