From Publishers Weekly
First published in the U.K. in 1990, Raymond's searing fourth entry in his Factory series (
The Devil's Home on Leave, etc.) opens with a psychopath hurling an old lady to her death against her grandfather clock—just after he took an ax to young Dora Suarez in a neighboring flat. That same night, the killer shoots Felix Roatta—part-owner of a seedy London club, who's expecting money from the killer—with a gun loaded with a soft-tip bullet (The upper part of Roatta's head entirely disappeared). Matters wind up in the hands of an unnamed narrator, a police sergeant, who (à la
Laura) begins to develop an unhealthy fixation on Dora. Though some may find the sanguinary detail overdone, it's somehow rendered a shade less objectionable when translated into the British idiom. Raymond (1931–1994) was a prime practitioner of the not-so-gentle art of murder, Brit-style, and if anyone wants a sample of his wares, this is a fine place to start.
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Review
"'A sulphurous mixture of ferocious violence and high-flown philosophy' Prospect 'A mixture of thin-lipped Chandleresque backchat and of idioms more icily subversive' Observer 'I cannot think of another writer so obsessed with the skull beneath the skin' The Times 'Raymond writes with a stomach-churning exactness about murder, madness and mutilation' The Times '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' New York Times"
