He Died with His Eyes Open

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 crackerjack of a crime novel, unafraid to face the reality of man’s and woman’s evil.” —Evening Standard
“The book is beautifully written, grimy as some of the characters are. Mr. Raymond is a master of the sharp vignette, the telling phrase, the speech patterns that perfectly describe a character. All of the people in his book are vividly alive.” —New York Times
How the Dead Live
“More Chandleresque than Chandler . . . [Raymond] could write beautifully . . . and, more importantly, what he is writing about in this novel are nothing less than the most important subjects any writer can deal with: morality and death.” from the introduction by Will Self
“Powerful and mesmerizing . . . With spare, often lyrical prose, Raymond digs beneath society’s civilized veneer to expose the inner rot.” —Publishers Weekly
I Was Dora Suarez
“A bizarre mixture of Chandleresque elegance . . . and naked brutality.” —The Daily Telegraph
“If you think of the act of writing as a game of chicken between the author and his talent, then Derek Raymond is one author who achieves his ecstasy by sailing off cliffs. Everything about I Was Dora Suarez shrieks of the joy and pain of going too far.” —Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review
The Devil's Home on Leave
“Superb . . . an English Chandler.” —Daily Mail (London)
“The beautiful, ruthless simplicity of the Factory novels is that Raymond rewrites the basic ethos of the classic detective novel.” —Charles Taylor, The Nation