The most brutal but compassionate crime fiction I've read: The Factory series by Derek Raymond
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- Опубліковано 14 гру 2022
- The Factory series:
He Died with his Eyes Open
The Devil's Home on Leave
How the Dead Live
I Was Dora Suarez
Dead Man Upright
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I love Derek Raymond! The best description of his work is that it “shrieks of the joy and pain of going too far.”
That's a great description!
@CriminOlly I also like the story about his publisher having vomited across his desk while reading Dora Suarez, which delighted Raymond lol.
@@jackthereader it's the finest form of criticism!
So since I discovered your channel, I started to read horror and terror novels. Now I am reading again, after 30 years, The Silence of the Lambs” and I think it is an excellent horror book, very well written. So coming here I do not feel apart reading this type of novels, surrounded by pals that love also to read them. Thank you! Your sessions are so interesting. You can be a very good teacher, maybe you are? Good video, more books on my list!
Thank you! Really glad you're enjoying the channel and it's got you reading different things!
Surprisingly my library has all five, I'll check them out at some point in the near future.
Great! Hope you enjoy them
This sounds like a fascinating series, and I think I may have some from a bundle a few years back. If I do, they're going into my 500 books queue for sure. Thanks!
I often say that my favorite horror pretty much all has a strong thread of sorrow, almost as if the author were saying, "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but even though none of these people deserved it, this is what happened to them...." So you said the magic words to hook me just right.
Have you read The Laws of the Skies? That very much fits your description of horror
@@CriminOllyBlog I haven't. But the title sounded familiar, and sure enough, I got it on a Kindle sale a year or two ago. So it can be one of my 500 books, too!
@@MriInterocitor ha! You’re as bad as me 😂
@@CriminOllyBlog There are REASONS I found the challenge so appealing.
@@MriInterocitor LMAO
I am loving the Factory novels. What a GREAT FIND THANKS! BTW you should give Ames a go if you haven't. He wrote A Man Named Doll plus you were Never Really Here.
There's a CD of the devastating 'I was Dora Suarez', read by Derek Raymond. It has a soundtrack by British Musician Terry Edwards (you can hear it on his website. )
Oh wow, I need to listen to that! Thanks for commenting and sorry it has taken me so long to reply.
You had me at brutal but compassionate. I once made a list of crime fiction I want to read from a book called The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction, and I Was Dora Suarez was on there, as was The Crust on Its Uppers now you mention that one. I’d better get to these.
You definitely should!
@@CriminOllyBlog would you recommend reading them in order or do they work well on their own?
@@AliceandtheGiantBookshelf they do work on their own, but there’s something that is revealed about the protagonist in one of the later books which means probably best read in order
@@CriminOllyBlog thanks Olly. I’m definitely a reading in order kind of person anyway! 😊
Insightful… I like the bleak stories a lot. Thanks for another video Olly I’ll keep these in mind.
Cheers John. Glad you found it interesting
Fantastic rundown of this series. Gritty, nasty stuff. Nice pull with Goodis. Love his work - especially as much of his writing is based in my home town, albeit decades before I was born. My apologies if you have already talked about the following, though I've not seen them on the blog: Joel Lane's Where Furnaces Burn or David Peace's Red Riding Quartet?
I've not heard of the Lane book, I'll have to check it out. The Red Riding quartet is a series I haven't read yet, but do have on my kindle
@@CriminOllyBlog the Lane book seems to be going for ridiculous prices at the moment. Not certain why. In any event it is concerned with various cases a damaged unnamed detective investigates in West Midlands.
@@rresmini some of his other work seems to be cheaper so I might try that once I’m off my book buying ban!
Thanks. You're really good at this. Being a English writer, I don't think I'll find him in my standerd haunts. That's good. I read to much dark stuff as it is.
This is definitely dark!
Olly, these books have been on my watch list ever since you reviewed the first one. I'm not going to start until I can score the entire series. I'm definitely not one for crime fiction, but this series does speak to me. Looking forward to reading it - after the challenge. 😊 - 📚MJ
Hope you enjoy them when you get to them, MJ!
@@CriminOllyBlog You will know when I get to them when I say “What the heck am I reading?!?!?” 😃
@@M-J quite possibly!
@@CriminOllyBlog assuredly
You read my mind! Having finished the first book this week, I just ordered three more (the last one is a bit expensive where I live).
Yeah the last one doesn't seem to have been republished, not sure why
Wow, Raymond's series sounds great. Thanks for discussing it.
They're really good!
Good interesting video. Have added the 1st to my TBR
Great review Olly. I have 'He Died With His Eyes Open' burning a hole on my shelf as we speak. Bought it based on your review of the third book(?) of the series and wanted to start from the beginning. I need to raise it up on my TBR.
You do! It's great. Hope you enjoy it!
These seem incredibly hard to locate. Hopefully, some publisher will re-issue them soon even just in ebook form.
They're certainly available on Kindle in the UK, but I guess maybe not elsewhere
@@CriminOllyBlog Not here in Canada although I did find the first factory book only on Kobo.
They're all available on Open Library. Somewhere Olly is softly swearing under his breath at me for mentioning Open Library for the umpteenth time.
@@eriebeverly Thank you!
@@eriebeverly not at all!
My dear Ollie, thank you again for bringing light to these great books. My amazon wish list keeps filling up, thanks to you. I never heard of this series. Sounds like it is right up my tree. Love hardboiled fiction. I have not read much British hardboiled, so this will be a treat. Merry Christmas to you and yours.
Thanks Andrew, and Merry Christmas to you too - hope you enjoy them!
I read and enjoyed the first, thank you for introducing me to this series, I’m ordering the rest of them
Glad you liked it!
Heading over to WOB now to see if they have any of these books available. Thanks for the review 👍
Hope you find them!
I'd never heard of this series but I'll definitely have to check it out. Cheers, Olly!
Hope you like them!
I remember when I first found out about hardboiled books and I kept coming across I Was Dora Suarez and how brutal it was but I never got around to ever getting that book.
It's so good and so so butal!
Loved those books,although I don't remember much about Eyes Open ( "the laughing cavalier", is about all), or Dora Suarez ( of course, the villain's "bicycle" contraption springs to mind... ).
I never knew about the last book( Dead Upright ).
As a young American, it was a challenge to parse the English colloquialisms. What's a "grass" ? " , and what does " down to grassing " mean?
I had no idea what a Lorry was, OR a Humane killer.
Burks,punters and the Old Bill, were all additional mysteries to me.
Since this was before the Internet, I had to use context clues.
The second book was a brilliant cat-and-mouse. Its unimaginable to me to go unarmed, in the face of such an adversary.
And the compassion in "how the Dead live" brought me to tears, whilst introducing me to Righteous Fury, in the form of a crashing blow to the Jaw of Mindless cruelty.
"so what?"
" I'll SHOW you what ! "
tearing up just thinking about that....
Yeah they really are marvellous books - I can completely see how the language might have proved a challenge for non-UK reader though!
Hey Olly, do you have any Roberto Bolaño on your TBR. I'm super serious to hear your thoughts on 2666, especially the part about the crimes. It counts as 5 books btw so you'd get 5 books down with it. Love your videos btw (even if i rarely ever comment)
I haven’t. I’m very much aware that I need to though!
And thank you. Really glad you’re enjoying the channel
Thank you so very much, again. Smiles.
My pleasure! Thanks for watching!
Dang it, they're all out of print!
Sorry!
The way you described the first book reminds me of (8mm) with Nicolas Cage, the only difference being he was a rich private investigator who worked for rich people, the movie also had James Gandolfini and Joaquin Phoenix and it takes place in the United States! The original is a classic...
I haven’t seen that for years, but I remember it being really disturbing
I’ve not heard of these books but they sound amazing. Off to Amazon I go😅
Hope you enjoy them!
OIlly, please! My wallet can’t take any more!!!
Sorry!
Haven’t read Raymond but I shall look out for him.
Definitely worth reading
Always interested to get perspective on possible reads though I'm not going a lot for grim right now. Anyway, I would tune in just to get a "Cheerio" at the finale. 🤭😊💕
Ha! Thank you! And Cheerio :)
@@CriminOllyBlog well, that just makes the evening here in Denver Colorado US!🤭💗
@@morebirdsandroses ha! Morning for me. I’ve just got up!
@@CriminOllyBlog yikes! It's now midnight here. 😳
My all-time favorite crime writer, bar none (as well as one of my favorite writers ever). No one, but no one--when it comes to writing crime novels--comes close. Not Raymond Chandler, not James M. Cain, not Ross Macdonald, not James Ellroy . . . you can name any of them, and they pale compared. Want to read something that will fry your brain & will stay with you forever? Read I Was Dora Suarez. Yes, am saying this, having written my share of noir (the Edgar "Doc" Holiday thrillers), plus millions of words on top, the late UK writer Derek Raymond (born Arthur Cook; no, not the "Coma" dude) is the best.
Yeah he really was something
i like to read to escape the bounds of the earth. this seems to hug the surface.
It very much does!
@@CriminOllyBlog not that there's anything wrong with that!
Have you seen Iain Sinclair's and Chris Petit's film 'The Cardinal and the Corpse'? It's now on UA-cam. Iirc, it includes an interview with Robin Cook. It's a great film about book collecting in any case.
I haven’t! That sounds great though. I’ll need to check it out. Thank you!
going to give this one a try!
Hope you like it!
Have you presented a review of the Slough House series by Mick Herron?
I havent read him but am intrigued. Can they be read independently ? Or best to read in order ? (I dont recall if you mentioned that in the video).
They can - although there is one detail about the detective's past that it revealed in (I think) the second book which will be spoiled if you read them out of order
I will check out these 5 books 😊
Hope you enjoy them!
@@CriminOllyBlog thanks ☺️
Thanks Olly. I heard about this writer a year or two back and was thinking about checking him this has been a nice reminder/decider. Have you read any Ted Lewis?
Yes! Only Get Carter, but I really enjoyed that
@@CriminOllyBlog I've only read the last one. So bleak! The main character feels believable though.
@@themiddleplace yeah great character
I'll have to read Derek Raymond. Since am fond of the bleak, gritty kind of thrillers. Hope they're better than the Stephen King ones. That's too cheap, it ain't my kind. Though what happens nowadays is also quite awful, in't it ⁉️🙄😳😔🙏
Hey! Thanks for another interesting video. ☺️ I was just wondering if this series had any graphic sexual assault in it? I'd love to read them and am having trouble finding trigger warnings for these. 💜💜💜
Hi! Yes they do I’m afraid.
@@CriminOllyBlog thanks so so much! 💜
Pity you didn't include a link to your UA-cam review of "He Died With His Eyes Open". I went to GoodReads and all I found there was a rating by you for 5 stars. No review.
👏👏👏👏👏yesssss
Thank you!
@@CriminOllyBlog thank YOU for reacquainting me with this!!
Have you read the John Connoly books?