Customer Reviews

The Devil's Home on Leave

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The Devil's Home on Leave is the first of Derek Raymond's Factory novels. The series is a grim view of London's criminal underground and a policeman who understands it completely. The sergeant works for a small division of the force that deals with whatever the Serious Crime Unit deems to be too low-profile: vagrants, prostitutes - the forlorn and the forgotten. The sergeant investigates the revolting murder of a man with only his memoirs as a guide, the killer having reduced the corpse to unidentifiable fragments.

This is a common theme in the Factory novels, a victim who is ignored by the system but who is brought to life by either a diary, recorded thoughts or the memories of close friends. The sergeant is never named but his depth of feeling for the victim is almost painful to read. The novels are never really whodunnits, more the gradual gathering of evidence and uncovering of the chain of events. These books gripped me, they have a savage beauty. Their tone is depressing but there are some lighter moments when the sergeant takes time to deconstruct the masks that many of his witnesses wear or give his thoughts on the nature of policework. Buy it.

Fantastic noir writer, a madman himself, his works are wonderful stories of depravity, violence and a nameless detective who is a tough, brilliant man who sins often and devotes himself to the destruction of evil.

This second entry in the "Factory" series is very different from the first. The perspective of the 'unnamed' Sergeant, seems to come from a different place than it did in the first. Maybe it's the tortured side of his private life that wasn't mentioned in the first (or did it happen after the first) that seems to change his perspective. Raymond (or Robin Cook) does a great job of breaking down the walls between the 'classes' probably because he grew up on one side but lived most of his life on the other. He especially seems to have a great handle as to what it was to grow up in Northern Ireland during the worst of "The Troubles".

Once you get past the gory details of the first murder and into the mystery itself, the story is very compelling. Like the best thrillers, things just lead one into the other and the complications all make sense. Especially the Cambridge connection with the Russian trade mission.

The unnamed Sergeant is all Raymond, you can hear the snide laughter in the background every time he takes on "Authority". The interview that he is forced to go to with the promotion board is hilarious as he tries to get out of it and then purposely cocks-it-up. The men on the Board are so thick headed that none of them get the idea that he doesn't want a promotion and just think he's being 'cheeky'. It's past funny when he goes to interview a high level minister for breaking the "Official Secret's Act" who complains to him:

"Shouldn't I be interviewed by some one at a higher level than Sergeant?"

"Well, you'll just have to get used to dealing with me"

"I'm used to being addressed as Sir"

"Well I don't have time for that now"

And then the Minister threatens to call the Sergeant's higher ups even though the guy knows they both know he's guilty. Doesn't matter, one has to keep up appearances and expect the lower classes to know their place. It's almost like, 'you know who we are and even if we are traitors we expect to be treated respectfully and with kid gloves'. It's all very English and "Bob's your Uncle" type stuff. Great Read.

Zeb Kantrowitz

While I enjoyed The Devil's Home on Leave, it is significantly different than Raymond's first Factory novel, He Died With His Eyes Open. Whereas Devil is filled with snappy dialogue between the unnamed police protagonist and a variety of villains and colleagues, Eyes is much more introspective. And whereas Eyes has extended passages where the prose is literary to the point of near-poetry, Devil is a much more plot-driven work, where the text is more expository.

I liked them both, but they are very different works. I almost got the feeling that after producing a darkly beautiful piece of art in Eyes, Raymond saw the opportunity for a franchise character and took Devil in a more commercial direction.